Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Sea-wolf

SEA-WOLF, or Anarrhicas Lupus, L. a voracious fish that creeps in the manner of eels, and in the spring frequents the shores of Greenland, Iceland, and Norway, as likewise the coasts of Yorkshire and Scotland, where it is caught; measuring from four to seven feet in length.

The Sea-wolf is one of the most ferocious inhabitants of the ocean; its head is somewhat flat on the top, and is furnished with numerous teeth, which are so strong as to make impressions even on stones and anchors. Its food consists of prawns, crabs, lobsters, and other testaceous fish, which it devours, together with their shells.

These fish, when taken, bite with uncommon severity: the fishermen, therefore, knock out their fore-teeth, and kill them by blows on the head. Their flesh being very rank, is relished only by their captors, who eat it both in a fresh, and in a dry or salted, state.—The reputed toad-stones (bufonites) are supposed to originate from the petrified teeth of the sea-wolf.