all anglers know how a fish is lured by a shining bait. The Angler-fish
seems to know this too. He buries himself in the wet mud and sand at the
bottom of the sea. Then he waves the long spine, so that the shining tip
glistens as it shakes in the water, until a fish swims up to see what it
is all about. A sudden snap, and that inquisitive fish is inside a huge,
toad-like mouth, well furnished with rows of sharp teeth. The
Angler-fish puts his catch in his pocket, and begins fishing again, for
he is never satisfied. His pocket is a loose bag of skin in the throat.
This bag is always examined by fishermen who capture the Angler, for it
may contain a nice big Plaice or Sole, worth money in the market.

There are Angler-fishes in every ocean, and some live in the very
deepest parts. In those black depths the little waving "bait" would not
be seen. So it is made to shine, like a bluish spark moving to and fro
over the cold black slime of the sea-bed.

Down in those awful deeps it is for ever dark, and freezing cold, There
is no day or night, summer or winter. No plants can live there. Yet in
that strange, still world there are numbers of living things, though we
know very little about them. There are weird Crabs, blind Lobsters, and
fish terrors such as are never seen elsewhere.

In that darkness you would think that eyes would be of no use, but some
of the deep-sea fish have great black owl-like eyes. Others are quite
blind, or have eyes like pin-points. Some of them make their own light,
glowing with rows of little lamps on their bodies, each like the lamp of
the glow-worm of our country lanes. Blue, red, and green these lights
are, but no one can tell you their real use, or why they are so
coloured. The blind fish feel their way with long feelers, stretched out
like the threads of a web.

[Illustration: THE FISHING FROG.]

As there are no plants down there, these strange fish must live mostly
on one another! And here is a puzzle, for some of them have great big
bodies, but small heads and tiny mouths; others have bodies like
ribbons, but large heads and huge mouths, and some are such gluttons
that they swallow fish twice their own size! This sounds absurd, but it
is true. Their mouths gape open like trap-doors, and their stomachs are
made to stretch, to hold their huge meals! There are other terrors of
the deep with such big teeth that they cannot shut their mouths. No
doubt the sea holds yet other weird fish which