FISHING-FROG, Toad-fish, or Sea-devils, a genus of the branchiostegous order of fishes, whose head is in size equal to all the rest of the body. There are three species; the most remarkable of which is the piscatorius, or common fishing-frog, an inhabitant of the British seas. This singular fish was known to the ancients by the name of ὁρμοπόδας, and ῥάντα; and to us by that of the fishing-frog, for it is of a figure resembling that animal in a tadpole state. Pliny takes notice of the artifice used by it to take its prey: *Eminentia sub oculis cornicula turbinato limo exortis, affluantest pisciculos attrahens, donec tum irope accedunt, ut afficiat.* "It puts forth the slender horns it has beneath its eyes, enticing by that means the little fish to play round, till they come within reach, when it springs..." The fishing-frog grows to a large size, some being between four and five feet in length; and Mr Pennant mentions one taken near Scarborough, whose mouth was a yard wide. The fishermen on that coast have a great regard for this fish, from a supposition that it is a great enemy to the dog-fish; and whenever they take it with their lines, set it at liberty.

It is a fish of very great deformity: the head is much bigger than the whole body; is round at the circumference, and flat above; the mouth of a prodigious wideness. The under jaw is much longer than the upper: the jaws are full of slender sharp teeth: in the roof of the mouth are two or three rows of the same: at the root of the tongue, opposite each other, are two bones of an elliptical form, thick set, with very strong sharp teeth. The nostrils do not appear externally, but in the upper part of the mouth are two large orifices that serve instead of them. On each side the upper-jaw are two sharp spine, and others are scattered about the upper part of the head. Immediately above the nose are two long tough filaments, and on the back three others; these are what Pliny calls cornicula, and says it makes use of to attract the little fish. They seem to be like lines flung out for that end. Along the edges of the head and body are a multitude of short fringed skins, placed at equal distances. The aperture to the gills is placed behind; each of these is very wide, so that some writers have imagined it to be a receptacle for the young in time of danger. The body grows slender near the tail, the end of which is quite even. The colour of the upper part of this fish is dusky, the lower part white; the skin smooth.