ANARHICHAS, in natural history, -wolf Ph, a genus of fishes of the order of Apodet : head rounded, blunt ; fore-teeth in each jt.w conic, large, divergent, six or more ; grinders in the lower jaw and pa. late rounded; gill-membrane seven-ray edl; body roundish, caudal-fin distinct. There are three species. A. lupus, or ravenous wolf-fish, inhabits the northern seas ; grows to 15 feet long ; it is a most fierce and ravenous fish, and will fasten on any thing within its reach. It feeds on shellfish, which it grinds to pieces with its teeth, and swallows shells and all : moves slowly with something of a serpen tine motion ; the grinders are often found fossile, and are called toad-stones ; the flesh is good, but not often eaten. The fossile teeth were formerly much esteem ed for imaginary virtues, and were set in gold and worn as rings. Notwithstanding the ferocity of this fish, which is as dread ful to the small inhabitants of the wa ter, as the wolf is to those on land, it is sometimes attacked and destroyed by an enemy offar inferior size and strength,viz.
the cyclopterus, or lump-fish, which, fas tening itselfon its neck, adheres immove ably, tormenting; it in such a manner as to cause its death. The wolf-fish fre quents the deep part of the sea, and in the spring approaches the coast, in order to deposit its spawn among marine plants : the ova arc about the size of peas ; and the young arc of a greenish cast, like that of sea-wrack, among which they reside for some time after their birth. See Plate I. Pisces, fig. 3. A. minor is found in the Greenland seas; and the A. pantherinus inhabits the Northern and Frozen Ocean.