Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1893 — The Rat Fish of the Pacific. [ARTICLE]

The Rat Fish of the Pacific.

The other day a boat came in out of the morning mist after a night with the drift nets, far out in the broad bay, and landed on the rude wharf at Capitola, with its glittering load of salmon, a thing that puzzled even the old residents by the shore. Some of them called it a squirrel fish, and others a ratfish. The thing had a tail like a goose feather, a soft, pulpy nose, a horn in its forehead with a spiked point and a socket into which to drop it when not in use; a pair of organs, half hands, half feet, below its ventral fins, and a mouth like a shark’s, with close-fitting teeth of serrated cartilage. It was close to two feet long, and its ugly body shone when fresh from the water with hues ranging from pearly white to a deep lustrous green, while its great, staring eyes seemed like two perfect emeralds. The academy’s ichthyologist didn t think this fish much of a curio, remarking that it had been discovered long enough ago for Linnaeus to classify it. It is, as the fisherman said, a rat fish. That is the popular name. —San Francisco Chronicle.