The remarkable Angler Fish (_Lophius piscatorius_), known also as the Fishing Frog and the Sea Devil (family _Lophiidæ_) is sometimes taken off the coasts of Devon and Cornwall; and although it cannot be truly described as a littoral species, its structure and habits are so peculiar that it deserves a passing notice. It is an ugly fish, with an enormous head, a short naked body, and a comparatively slender tail. The mouth is very capacious, sometimes measuring over a foot from angle to angle, and is directed upwards. The scaleless body is furnished with numerous slender filaments that resemble certain filamentous sea weeds, and these together with the dull colouring of the body generally enable the fish to rest unobserved on the bottom. The front portion of the dorsal fin is on the head and fore part of the body, and consists of a series of six tentacles, three long ones on the top of the head and three shorter just behind them; and the foremost of these, which is the longest, terminates in a little expansion which is kept in constant movement by the fish. The mouth is armed with rasplike teeth which can be raised or depressed at will, and when raised they are always directed backward; the eyes are directed upward, and the gill-openings are very small. This strange creature habitually rests on the bottom of the sea, disguised by its filamentous appendages and adaptive colouring, dangling the expanded extremity of its first dorsal filament just over its upturned cavernous mouth. It does not swim much, indeed it is at the best but a bad swimmer; and when it moves it simply shuffles its heavy body along the bottom, gliding between the stones and rocks, where it may remain unobserved, its movements being produced by the action of the tail, and of the paired fins, which are better adapted for walking than for swimming. Unwary fishes, attracted by the dangling of the angler’s bait, approach the watchful monster, and while speculating on the nature of the bait, are suddenly engulfed in the capacious mouth, from which there is no escape on account of the backward direction of the teeth. The family _Trachinidæ_ contains the fishes known popularly as the Stargazers and the Weavers. These are small, carnivorous species, with rather elongated bodies, terminating in tail fins that are not forked. The first dorsal fin is distinct and spinous, and the spines, as well as others that are developed on the gill-covers, are grooved for the passage of a poisonous fluid that is secreted at their bases. Our littoral species include two well-known fishes (the Greater and Lesser Weavers) that are dreaded by fishermen on account of the very painful wounds they are capable of inflicting, and the smaller of the two is also a considerable annoyance to bathers on certain sandy coasts. [Illustration: FIG. 243.--THE LESSER WEAVER]