XIII. PHTHINOBRANCHII: HEMIBRANCHII, LOPHOBRANCHII, AND HYPOSTOMIDES
=SUBORDER Hemibranchii.=—Still another transitional group, the Hemibranchii, is composed of spiny-rayed fishes with abdominal ventrals. In this suborder there are other points of divergence, though none of high importance. In these fishes the bones of the shoulder-girdle are somewhat distorted, the supraclavicle reduced or wanting, and the gill structures somewhat degenerate. The presence of bones called interclavicles or infraclavicles, below and behind the clavicle, has been supposed to characterize the order of Hemibranchii. But this character has very slight importance. In two families, Macrorhamphosidæ and Centriscidæ, the interclavicles are absent altogether. In the Fistulariidæ they are very large. According to the studies of Mr. Edwin C. Starks, the bone in question is not a true infraclavicle. It is not identical with the infraclavicle of the Ganoids, but it is only a backward extension of the hypocoracoid, there being no suture between the two bones. In those species which have bony plates instead of scales, this bone has a deposit of bony substance or ganoid enamel at the surface. This gives it an apparent prominence as compared with other bones of the skeleton, but it has no great taxonomic importance. Dr. Hay unites the suborders Hemibranchii, Lophobranchii, and Hypostomides to form the order Phthinobranchii (φθινάς, waning; βράγχος, gill), characterized by the reduction of the gill-arches. These forms are really nearly related, but their affinities with the Percesoces are so close that it may not be necessary to form a distinct order of the combined group. Boulenger unites the Hemibranchii with Lampris to form a group, Catosteomi, characterized by the development of infraclavicles; but we cannot see that Lampris bears any affinity to the sticklebacks, or that the presence of infraclavicle has any high significance, nor is it the supposed infraclavicle of Lampris homologous with that of the Hemibranchii. The dorsal fin in the Hemibranchii has more or less developed spines; spines are also present in the ventral fins. The lower pharyngeals are separated; there is no air-duct. The mouth is small and the bones of the snout are often much produced. The preopercle and symplectic are distinct. The group is doubtless derived from some transitional spiny-rayed type allied to the Percesoces. The Lophobranchs, another supposed order, represent simply a still further phase of degradation of gills and ventral fins. Dr. Gill separates these two groups as distinct orders and places them, as aberrant offshoots, near the end of his series of bony fishes. We prefer to leave them with the other transitional forms, not regarding their traits of divergence as of any great importance in the systematic arrangement of families.
=The Sticklebacks: Gasterosteidæ.=—The sticklebacks (Gasterosteidæ) are small, scaleless fishes, closely related to the Fistulariidæ so far as anatomy is concerned, but with very different appearance and habits. The body often mailed, the dorsal is preceded by free spines and the ventrals are each reduced to a sharp spine with a rudimentary ray. The jaws are short, bristling with sharp teeth, and these little creatures are among the most active, voracious, and persistent of all fishes. They attack the fins of larger fishes, biting off pieces, and at the same time they devour the eggs of all species accessible to them. In almost all fresh and brackish waters of the north temperate zone these little fishes abound. "It is scarcely to be conceived," Dr. Günther observes, "what damage these little fishes do, and how greatly detrimental they are to the increase of all the fishes among which they live, for it is with the utmost industry, sagacity, and greediness that they seek out and destroy all the young fry that come their way."
The sticklebacks inhabit brackish and fresh waters of the northern hemisphere, species essentially alike being found throughout northern Europe, Asia, and America. The same species is subject to great variation. The degree of development of spines and bony plates is greatest in individuals living in the sea and least in clear streams of the interior. Each of the mailed species has its series of half-mailed or even naked varieties found in the fresh waters. This is true in Europe, New England, California, and Japan. The farther the individuals are from the sea, the less perfect is their armature. Thus, Gasterosteus cataphractus, which in the sea has a full armature of bony plates on the side, about 30 in number, will have in river mouths from 6 to 20 plates and in strictly fresh water only 2 or 3 or even none at all.
The sticklebacks have been noted for their nest-building habits. The male performs this operation, and he is provided with a special gland for secretion of the necessary cement. Dr. Gill quotes from Dr. John A. Ryder an account of this process. The secretory gland is a "large vesicle filled with a clear secretion which coagulates into threads upon contact with water. It appears to open directly in front of the vent. As soon as it is ruptured, it loses its transparency, and whatever secretion escapes becomes whitish after being in contact with water for a short time. This has the same tough, elastic qualities as when spun by the animal itself, and is also composed of numerous fibers, as when a portion is taken that has been recently spun upon the nest. Thus provided, when the nuptial season has arrived the male stickleback prepares to build his nest, wherein his mate may deposit her eggs. How this nest is built, and the subsequent proceedings of the sticklebacks, have been told us in a graphic manner by Mr. John K. Lord, from observations on Gasterosteus cataphractus on Vancouver Island, although the source of his secretion was misunderstood:
"The site is generally amongst the stems of aquatic plants, where the water always flows but not too swiftly. He first begins by carrying small bits of green material which he nips off the stalks and tugs from out the bottom and sides of the bank; these he attaches by some glutinous material, that he clearly has the power of secreting, to the different stems destined as pillars for his building. During this operation he swims against the work already done, splashes about, and seems to test its durability and strength; rubs himself against the tiny kind of platform, scrapes the slimy mucus from his sides to mix with and act as mortar for his vegetable bricks. Then he thrusts his nose into the sand at the bottom, and, bringing a mouthful, scatters it over the foundation; this is repeated until enough has been thrown on to weight the slender fabric down and give it substance and stability. Then more twists, turns, and splashings to test the firm adherence of all the materials that are intended to constitute the foundation of the house that has yet to be erected on it. The nest, or nursery, when completed is a hollow, somewhat rounded, barrel-shaped structure worked together much in the same way as the platform fastened to the water-plants; the whole firmly glued together by the viscous secretion scraped from off the body. The inside is made as smooth as possible by a kind of plastering system; the little architect continually goes in, then, turning round and round, works the mucus from his body on to the inner sides of the nest, where it hardens like tough varnish. There are two apertures, smooth and symmetrical as the hole leading into a wren's nest, and not unlike it.
"All this laborious work is done entirely by the male fish, and when completed he goes a-wooing. Watch him as he swims towards a group of the fair sex enjoying themselves amidst the water-plants arrayed in his best and brightest livery, all smiles and amiability; steadily and in the most approved style of stickleback love-making this young and wealthy bachelor approaches the object of his affections, most likely tells her all about his house and its comforts, hints delicately at his readiness and ability to defend her children against every enemy, vows unfailing fidelity, and in lover fashion promises as much in a few minutes as would take a lifetime to fulfill. Of course she listens to his suit; personal beauty, indomitable courage, backed by the substantial recommendations of a house ready built and fitted for immediate occupation, are gifts not to be lightly regarded.
"Throwing herself on her side the captive lady shows her appreciation, and by sundry queer contortions declares herself his true and devoted spouse. Then the twain return to the nest, into which the female at once betakes herself and therein deposits her eggs, emerging, when the operation is completed, by the opposite hole. During the time she is in the nest (about six minutes) the male swims round and round, butts and rubs his nose against it, and altogether appears to be in a state of defiant excitement. On the female leaving, he immediately enters, deposits the milt on the eggs, taking his departure through the back door. So far his conduct is strictly pure; but I am afraid morality in stickleback society is of rather a lax order. No sooner has this lady, his first love, taken her departure, than he at once seeks another, introduces her as he did the first, and so on, wife after wife, until the nest is filled with eggs, layer upon layer, milt being carefully deposited betwixt each stratum of ova. As it is necessary there should be two holes, by which ingress and egress can be readily accomplished, so it is equally essential in another point of view. To fertilize fish-eggs, running water is the first necessity; and, as the holes are invariably placed in the direction of the current, a steady stream of water is thus directed over them."
To the genus Gasterosteus the largest species belong, those having three dorsal spines, and the body typically fully covered with bony plates. Gasterosteus aculeatus inhabits both shores of the Atlantic and the scarcely different Gasterosteus cataphractus swarms in the inlets from southern California to Alaska, Siberia, and northern Japan. Half-naked forms have been called by various names and one entirely naked in streams of southern California is named Gasterosteus williamsoni. Its traits are, however, clearly related to its life in fresh waters.
In Pygosteus pungitius, a type of almost equally wide range, there are nine or ten dorsal spines and the body is more slender. All kinds of waters of the north on both continents may yield this species or its allies and variations, mailed or naked. The naked, Apeltes quadracus, is found in the sea only, along the New England coast.
Eucalia inconstans is the stickleback of the clear brook from New York to Indiana and Minnesota. The male is jet black in spring with the sheen of burnished copper and he is intensely active in his work of protecting the eggs of his own species and destroying the eggs and fry of others. Spinachia spinachia is a large sea stickleback of Europe with many dorsal spines.
No fossil Gasterosteidæ are recorded, and the family, while the least specialized in most regards, is certainly not the most primitive of the suborder.
=The Aulorhynchidæ.=—Closely related to the sticklebacks is the small family of Aulorhynchidæ, with four soft rays in the ventral fins. Aulorhynchus, like Spinachia, has many dorsal spines and an elongate snout approaching that of a trumpet-fish. Aulorhynchus flavidus lives on the coast of California and Aulichthys japonicus in Japan. The extinct family of Protosyngnathidæ is near Aulorhynchus, with the snout tubular, the ribs free, not anchylosed as in Aulorhynchus, and with the first vertebræ fused, forming one large one as in Aulostomus. Protosyngnathus sumatrensis occurs in Sumatra. Protaulopsis bolcensis of the Eocene of Italy has the ventral fins farther back, and is probably more primitive than the sticklebacks.
=Cornet-fishes: Fistulariidæ.=—Closely related to the sticklebacks so far as structure is concerned is a family of very different habit, the cornet-fishes, or cornetas (Fistulariidæ). In these fishes the body is very long and slender, like that of a garfish. The snout is produced into a very long tube, which bears the short jaws at the end. The teeth are very small. There are no scales, but bony plates are sunk in the skin. The ventrals are abdominal, each with a spine and four rays. The four anterior vertebræ are very much elongate. There are no spines in the dorsal and the back-bone extends through the forked caudal, ending in a long filament. The cornet-fishes are dull red or dull green in color. They reach a length of two or three feet, and the four or five known species are widely distributed through the warm seas, where they swim in shallow water near the surface. Fistularia tabaccaria, the tobacco-pipe fish, is common in the West Indies, Fistularia petimba, F. serrata, and others in the Pacific. A fossil cornet-fish of very small size, Fistularia longirostris, is known from the Eocene of Monte Bolca, near Verona. Fistularia kœnigi is recorded from the Oligocene of Glarus.
=The Trumpet-fishes: Aulostomidæ.=—The Aulostomidæ, or trumpet-fishes are in structure entirely similar to the Fistulariidæ, but the body is band-shaped, compressed, and scaly, the long snout bearing the feeble jaws at the end. There are numerous dorsal spines and no filament on the tail. Aulostomus chinensis (maculatus) is common in the West Indies, Aulostomus valentini abounds in Polynesia and Asia, where it is a food-fish of moderate importance. A species of Aulostomus (bolcensis) is found in the Italian Eocene. Allied to it is the extinct family Urosphenidæ, scaleless, but otherwise similar. Urosphen dubia occurs in the Eocene at Monte Bolca. Urosphen is perhaps the most primitive genus of the whole suborder of Hemibranchii.
=The Snipefishes: Macrorhamphosidæ.=—Very remarkable fishes are the snipefishes, or Macrorhamphosidæ. In these forms the snout is still tubular, with the short jaws at the end. The body is short and deep, partly covered with bony plates. The dorsal has a very long serrated spine, besides several shorter ones, and the ventral fins have one spine and five rays.
The snipefish, or woodcock-fish, Macrorhamphosus scolopax, is rather common on the coasts of Europe, and a very similar species (M. sagifue) occurs in Japan. The Rhamphosidæ, represented by Rhamphosus, an extinct genus with the ventrals further forward, are found in the Eocene rocks of Monte Bolca. Rhamphosus vastrum has minute scales, short dorsal, and the snout greatly attenuate.
=The Shrimp-fishes: Centriscidæ.=—One of the most extraordinary types of fishes is the small family of Centriscidæ, found in the East Indies. The back is covered by a transparent bony cuirass which extends far beyond the short tail, on which the two dorsal fins are crowded. Anteriorly this cuirass is composed of plates which are soldered to the ribs. The small toothless mouth is at the end of a long snout.
These little fishes with the transparent carapace look very much like shrimps. Centriscus scutatus (Amphisile) with the terminal spine fixed is found in the East Indies, and Æoliscus strigatus with the terminal spine movable is found in southern Japan and southwards.
A fossil species, Æoliscus heinrichi, is found in the Oligocene of various parts of Europe, and Centriscus longirostris occurs in the Eocene of Monte Bolca.
In the Centriscidæ and Macrorhamphosidæ the expansions of the hypocoracoid called infraclavicles are not developed.
=The Lophobranchs.=—The suborder Lophobranchii (λοφός, tuft; βραγχός, gill) is certainly an offshoot from the Hemibranchii and belongs likewise among the forms transitional from soft to spiny-rayed fishes. At the same time it is a degenerate group, and in its modifications it turns directly away from the general line of specialization.
The chief characters are found in the reduction of the gills to small lobate tufts attached to rudimentary gill-arches. The so-called infraclavicles are present, as in most of the Hemibranchii. Bony plates united to form rings take the place of scales. The long tubular snout bears the short toothless jaws at the end. The preopercle is absent, and the ventrals are seven-rayed or wanting. The species known as pipefishes and sea-horses are all very small and none have any economic value. They are numerous in all warm seas, mostly living in shallow bays among seaweed and eel-grass. The muscular system is little developed and all the species have the curious habit of carrying the eggs until hatched in a pouch of skin under the belly or tail; this structure is usually found in the male.
=The Solenostomidæ.=—The Solenostomidæ of the East Indies are the most primitive of these fishes. They have the body rather short and provided with spinous dorsal, and ventral fins. The pretty species are occasionally swept northward to Japan in the Black Current. Solenostomus cyanopterus is a characteristic species. Solenorhynchus elegans, now extinct (with the trunk more elongate), preceded Solenostomus in the Eocene of Monte Bolca.
=The Pipefishes: Syngnathidæ.=—The Syngnathidæ are very long and slender fishes, with neither spinous dorsal, nor ventral fins, the body covered by bony rings. Of the pipefish, Syngnathus, there are very many species on all northern coasts. Syngnathus acus is common in Europe, Syngnathus fuscum along the New England coast, Syngnathus californiense in California, and Syngnathus schlegeli in Japan. Numerous other species of Syngnathus and other genera are found further south in the same regions. Corythroichthys is characteristic of coral reefs and Microphis of the streams of the islands of Polynesia. In general, the more northerly species have the greater number of vertebræ and of bony rings. Tiphle tiphle is a large pipefish of the Mediterranean. This species was preceded by Tiphle albyi (Siphonostoma) in the Miocene of Sicily. Other pipefishes, referred to as Syngnathus and Calamostoma, are found as fossils in Tertiary rocks.
=The Sea-horses: Hippocampus.=—Both fossil and recent forms constitute a direct line of connection from the pipefishes to the sea-horses. In the latter the head has the form of the head of a horse. It is bent at right angles to the body like the head of a knight at chess. There is no caudal fin, and the tail in typical species is coiled and can hardly be straightened out. Calamostoma of the Eocene, Gasterotokeus of Polynesia, and Acentronura of Japan are forms which connect the true sea-horses with the pipefish. Gasterotokeus has the long head and slender body of the pipefish, with the prehensile finless tail of a sea-horse. Most of the living species of the sea-horse belong to the genus Hippocampus. These little creatures have the egg-sac of the male under the abdomen. They range from two inches to a foot in length and some of the many species may be found in abundance in every warm sea. Some cling by the tails to floating seaweed and are swept to great distances; others cling to eel-grass and live very near the shore. The commonest European species is Hippocampus hippocampus. Most abundant on our Atlantic coast is Hippocampus hudsonius. Hippocampus coronatus is most common in Japan. The largest species are Hippocampus ingens of Lower California and Hippocampus kelloggi in Japan. Many species, especially of the smaller ones, have the spines of the bony plates of the body ending in fleshy flaps. These are sometimes so enlarged as to simulate leaves of seaweed, thus serving for the efficient protection of the species. These flaps are developed to an extreme degree in Phyllopteryx eques, a pipefish of the East Indies.
No fossil sea-horses are known.
The following account of the breeding-habits of our smallest sea-horse (Hippocampus zosteræ) was prepared by the writer for a book of children's stories:
"He was a little bit of a sea-horse and his name was Hippocampus. He was not more than an inch long, and he had a red stripe on the fin on his back, and his head was made of bone and it had a shape just like a horse's head, but he ran out to a point at his tail, and his head and his tail were all covered with bone. He lived in the Grand Lagoon at Pensacola in Florida, where the water is shallow and warm and there are lots of seaweeds. So he wound his tail around a stem of seaweed and hung with his head down, waiting to see what would happen next, and then he saw another little sea-horse hanging on another seaweed. And the other sea-horse put out a lot of little eggs, and the little eggs all lay on the bottom of the sea at the foot of the seaweed. So Hippocampus crawled down from the seaweed where he was and gathered up all those little eggs, and down on the under side of his tail where the skin is soft he made a long slit for a pocket, and then he stuffed all the eggs into this pocket and fastened it together and stuck it with some slime. So he had all the other sea-horse's eggs in his own pocket.
"Then he went up on the seawrack again and twisted his tail around it, and hung there with his head down to see what would happen next. The sun shone down on him, and by and by all the little eggs began to hatch out, and each one of the eggs was a little sea-pony, shaped just like a sea-horse. And when he hung there with his head down he could feel all the little sea-ponies squirming inside his pocket, and by and by they squirmed so much that they pushed the pocket open, and then every one crawled away from him, and he couldn't get them back, and so he went along with them and watched to see that nothing should hurt them. And by and by they hung themselves all up on the seaweeds, and they are hanging there yet. And so he crawled back to his own piece of seaweed and twisted his tail around it, and waited to see what would happen next. And what happened next was just the same thing over again."
=Suborder Hypostomides, the Sea-moths: Pegasidæ.=—The small suborder of Hypostomides (ὑπό, below; στόμα, mouth) consists of the family of Pegasidæ. These "sea-moths" are fantastic little fishes, probably allied to the sticklebacks, but wholly unique in form. The slender body is covered with bony plates, the gill-covers are reduced to a single plate. The small mouth underneath a long snout has no teeth. The preopercle and the symplectic are both wanting. The ventrals are abdominal, formed of two rays, and the very large pectoral fin is placed horizontally like a great wing.
The species, few in number, known as sea-moths and sea-dragons, rarely exceed four inches in length. They are found in the East Indies and drift with the currents northward to Japan. The genera are Pegasus, Parapegasus, and Zalises. The best-known species are Zalises draconis and Pegasus volitans.
No fossil species of Pegasidæ are known.
XIV. SALMOPERCÆ AND OTHER TRANSITIONAL GROUPS
=SUBORDER Salmopercæ, the Trout-perches: Percopsidæ.=—More ancient than the Hemibranchii, and still more distinctly in the line of transition from soft-rayed to spiny-rayed fishes, is the small suborder of Salmopercæ. This is characterized by the presence of the adipose fin of the salmon, in connection with the mouth, scales, and fin-spines of a perch. The premaxillary forms the entire edge of the upper jaw, the maxillary being without teeth. The air-bladder retains a rudimentary duct. The bones of the head are full of mucous cavities, as in the European perch called Gymnocephalus and Acerina. There are two spines in the dorsal and one or two in the anal, while the abdominal ventrals have each a spine and eight rays. Two species only are known among living fishes, these emphasizing more perfectly than any other known forms the close relation really existing between spinous and soft-rayed forms. The single family of Percopsidæ would seem to find its place in Cretaceous rocks rather than in the waters of to-day.
Percopsis guttata, the trout-perch or sand-roller of the Great Lakes, is a pale translucent fish with dark spots, reaching a length of six inches. It abounds in the Great Lakes and their tributaries and is occasionally found in the Delaware, Ohio, Kansas, and other rivers and northwestward as far as Medicine Hat on the Saskatchewan. It is easily taken with a hook from the piers at Chicago.
Columbia transmontana is another little fish of similar type, but rougher and more distinctly perch-like. It is found in sandy or weedy lagoons throughout the lower basin of the Columbia, where it was first noticed by Dr. Eigenmann in 1892. From the point of view of structure and classification, this left-over form is one of the most remarkable of American fishes.
=Erismatopteridæ.=—Here should perhaps be placed the family of Erismatopteridæ, represented by Erismatopterus levatus and other species of the Green River Eocene shales. In Erismatopterus the short dorsal has two or three spines, there are two or three spines in the anal, and the abdominal ventrals are opposite the dorsal. Allied to Erismatopterus is Amphiplaga of the same deposits.
We cannot, however, feel sure that these extinct fragments, however well preserved, belonged to fishes having an adipose fin. Among spiny-rayed fishes the Percopsidæ alone retain this character, and the real affinities of Erismatopterus may be with Aphredoderidæ and other percoid forms.
The relations of the extinct family of Asineopidæ are also still uncertain. This group comprises fresh-water fishes said to be allied to the Aphredoderidæ, but with the pelvic bones not forked. Asineops pauciradiata, squamifrons and viridensis are described from the Green River shales. With Erismatopterus all these fishes may belong to the suborder of Salmopercæ, but, as above stated, the possession of the adipose fin, the most characteristic trait of the Salmopercæ, cannot be verified in the fossil remains.
=Suborder Selenichthyes, the Opahs: Lamprididæ.=—We may bring together as constituting another suborder certain forms of uncertain relationship, but which seem to be transitional between deep-bodied extinct Ganoids and the forms allied to Platax, Zeus, and Antigonia. The name of Selenichthyes (σηλήνη, moon; ἰχθύς, fish) is suggested by Boulenger for the group of opahs, or moonfishes. These are characterized by the highly compressed body, the great development of a large hypocoracoid, and especially by the structure of the ventral fins, which are composed of about fifteen rays instead of the one spine and five rays characteristic of the specialized perch-like fishes. The living forms of this type are further characterized by the partial or total absence of the spinous dorsal, by the small oblique mouth, and the prominence of the ventral curve of the body. A thorough study of the osteology of these forms living and fossil will be necessary before the group can be properly defined. The large bone above mentioned was at first considered by Boulenger as the interclavicle or infraclavicle, the hypocoracoid being regarded by him as displaced, lying with the actinosts. But it is certain, from the studies of Mr. Starks, that this bone is the real hypocoracoid, which in this case is simply exaggerated in size, but placed as in ordinary fishes.
The single living family, Lamprididæ, contains but one species, Lampris guttatus, known as opah, moonfish, mariposa, cravo, Jerusalem haddock, or San Pedro fish. This species reaches a length of six feet and a weight of 500 to 600 pounds. Fig. 199 (Vol. I) is taken from a photograph of an example weighing 317½ pounds taken near Honolulu by Mr. E. L. Berndt. The body is almost as deep as long, plump and smooth, without scales or bony plates. The vertebræ are forty-five in number, and the large ventrals contain about fifteen rays. The dorsal is without spines, the small mouth without teeth. The color is a "rich brocade of silver and lilac, rosy on the belly, everywhere with round silvery spots." The head and back have ultramarine tints, the jaws and fins are vermilion. On a drawing of this fish made at Sable Island in 1856, Mr. James Farquhar wrote (to Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin): "Just imagine the body, a beautiful silver interspersed with spots of a lighter color about the size of sixpence, the eyes very large and brilliant, with a golden ring around them. You will then have some idea of the splendid appearance of the fish when fresh. If Caligula had seen them I might have realized a fortune."
The skeleton of the opah is very firm and heavy. The flesh is of varying shades of salmon-red, tender, oily, and of a rich, exquisite flavor scarcely surpassed by any other fish whatsoever.
The opah is a rare fish, swimming slowly near the surface and ranging very widely in all the warm seas. It was first noticed in Norway by Gunner, the good bishop of Throndhjem, about 1780. It was soon after recorded from Elsinore, Torbay, and Madeira, and is occasionally taken in various places in Europe. It is also recorded from Newfoundland, Sable Island, Cuba, Monterey, San Pedro Point (near San Francisco), Santa Catalina, Honolulu, and Japan.
The specimen studied by the writer came ashore at Monterey in an injured condition, having been worsted in a struggle with some better-armed fish.
Allied to Lampris is the imposing extinct species known as Semiophorus velifer from the Eocene of Monte Bolca near Verona, the type of the extinct family of Semiophoridæ. This is a deep compressed fish, with very high spinous dorsal and very long, many-rayed ventrals. Other related species are known also from the Eocene. There is no evidence of any close relation between these fishes with Caranx or Platax, with which Woodward associates Semiophorus.
The Semiophoridæ differ from the Lamprididæ chiefly in the development of the spinous dorsal fin, which is composed of many slender rays.
=Suborder Zeoidea.=—Not far from the Selenichthyes and the Berycoidei we may place the singular group of John Dories, or zeoid fishes. These have the ventral fins thoracic and many-rayed, the dorsal fin provided with spines, and the post-temporal, as in the Chætodontidæ, fused with the skull. Dr. Boulenger calls attention to the close relation of these fishes to the flounders, and suggests the possible derivation of both from a synthetic type, the Amphistiidæ, found in the European Eocene. The Amphistiidæ, Zeidæ, and flounders are united by him to form the group or suborder Zeorhombi, characterized by the thoracic ventrals, which have the rays not I, 5 in number, by the progressive degeneration of the fin-spines and the progressive twisting of the cranium, bringing the two eyes to the same side of the head. It is not certain that the flounders are really derived from Zeus-like fishes, but no other guess as to their origin has more elements of probability.
We may, however, regard the Zeoidea on the one hand and the Heterosomata on the other as distinct suborders. This is certain, that the flounders are descended from spiny-rayed forms and that they have no affinities with the codfishes.
=Amphistiidæ.=—The Amphistiidæ, now extinct, are deep-bodied, compressed fishes, with long, continuous dorsal and anal fins in which a few of the anterior rays are simple, slender spines scarcely differentiated from the soft rays. The form of body and the structure of the fins are essentially as in the flounders, from which they differ chiefly by the symmetry of the head, the eyes being normally placed. Amphistium paradoxum is described by Agassiz from the upper Eocene. It occurs in Italy and France. In its dorsal and anal fins there are about twenty-two rays, the first three or four undivided. The teeth are minute or absent and there is a high supraoccipital crest.
=The John Dories: Zeidæ.=—The singular family of Zeidæ, or John Dories, agrees with Chætodonts in the single character of the fusion of the post-temporal with the skull. The species, however, diverge widely in other regards, and their ventral fins are essentially those of the Berycoids. In all the species there are seven to nine soft rays in the ventral fins, as in the Berycoid fishes. Probably the character of the fused post-temporal has been independently derived. The anterior vertebræ in Zeus, as in Chætodon, are closely crowded together. In the Zeidæ the spinous dorsal is well developed, the body naked or with very thin scales, and provided with bony warts at least around the bases of dorsal and anal fins. The species are mostly of small size, silvery in color, living in moderate depths in warm seas. The best-known genus is Zeus, which is a group of shore-fishes of the waters of Asia and Europe. The common John Dory (called in Germany Härings-König, or king of the herrings), Zeus faber, abounds in shallow bays on the coasts of Europe. It reaches a length of nearly a foot, and is a striking feature of the markets of southern Europe. The dorsal spines are high, the mouth large, and on the sides is a black ring, said by some to be the mark of the thumb of St. Peter, who is reported to have taken a coin from the mouth of this species. A black spot on several other species is associated with the same legend.
On the coasts of Japan abounds the Matao, or target-fish (Zeus japonicus), very similar to the European species and like it in form and color. Zenopsis nebulosa and Zen itea also occur on the coasts of Japan. The remaining Zeidæ (Cyttus, Zenopsis, Zenion, etc.) are all rare species occasionally dredged especially in the Australian region. Zeus priscus is recorded from the Tertiary, and Cyttoides glaronensis from the upper Eocene of Glavus.
=Grammicolepidæ.=—The Grammicolepidæ, represented by a single species, Grammicolepis brachiusculus, rarely taken off the coast of Cuba, is related to the Zeidæ. It has rough, ridged, parchment-like scales deeper than long. The ventrals are thoracic, with the rays in increased number, as in Zeus and Beryx, with each of which it suggests affinity.
XV. BERYCOIDEI
=THE Berycoid Fishes.=—We may place in a separate order a group of fishes, mostly spiny-rayed, which appeared earlier in geological time than any other of the spinous forms, and which in several ways represent the transition from the isospondylous fishes to those of the type of the mackerel and perch. In the berycoid fishes the ventral fins are always thoracic, the number of rays almost always greater than I, 5, and in all cases an orbitosphenoid bone is developed in connection with the septum between the orbits above. This bone is found in the Isospondyli and other primitive fishes, but according to the investigations of Mr. E. C. Starks it is wanting in all percoid and scombroid forms, as well as in the Haplomi and in all the higher fishes. This trait may therefore, among thoracic fishes, be held to define the section or suborder of Berycoidei.
These fishes, most primitive of the thoracic types, were more abundant in Cretaceous and Eocene times than now. The possession of an increased number of soft rays in the ventral fins is archaic, although in one family, the Monocentridæ, the number is reduced to three. Most of the living Berycoidei retain through life the archaic duct to the air-bladder characteristic of most abdominal or soft-rayed fishes. In some however, the duct is lost. For the first time in the fish series the number of twenty-four vertebræ appears. In most spiny-rayed fishes of the tropics, of whatever family, this number is retained.
In every case spines are present in the dorsal fin, and in certain cases the development of the spinous dorsal surpasses that of the most extreme perch-like forms. In geological times the Berycoids preceded all other perch-like fishes. They are probably ancestral to all the latter. All the recent species, in spite of high specialization, retain some archaic characters.
=The Alfonsinos: Berycidæ.=—The typical family, Berycidæ, is composed of fishes of rather deep water, bright scarlet or black in color, with the body short and compressed, the scales varying in the different genera. The single dorsal fin has a few spines in front, and there are no barbels. The suborbitals are not greatly developed.
The species of Beryx, called in Spanish Alfonsino, Beryx elegans and Beryx decadactylus, are widely distributed at moderate depths, the same species being recorded from Portugal, Madeira, Cuba, the Gulf Stream, and Japan. The colors are very handsome, being scarlet with streaks of white or golden. These fishes reach the length of a foot or more and are valued as food where sufficiently common.
Numerous species of Beryx and closely allied genera are found in all rocks since Cretaceous times; Beryx dalmaticus, from the Cretaceous of Dalmatia, is perhaps the earliest. Beryx insculptus is found in New Jersey, but no other Berycoids are yet known as fossils from North America. Sphenocephalus, with four anal spines, is found in the chalk, as are also species of Acrogaster and Pycnosterinx, these being the earliest of fishes with distinctly spiny fins.
The Trachichthyidæ are deep-sea fishes with short bodies, cavernous skulls, and rough scales. The dorsal is short, with a few spines in front. The suborbitals are very broad, often covering the cheeks, and the anal fin is shorter than the dorsal, a character which separates these fishes from the Berycidæ, in which group the anal fin is very long. The belly has often a serrated edge, and the coloration is red or black, the black species being softer in body and living in deeper water. Species of Hoplostethus, notably Hoplostethus mediterraneus, are found in most seas at a considerable depth. Trachichthys, a genus scarcely distinguishable from Hoplostethus, is found in various seas. The genus Paratrachichthys is remarkable for the anterior position of the vent, much as in Aphredoderus. Species occur in Japan and Australia. Gephyroberyx, with the dorsal fin notched, is known from Japan (G. japonicus) and Madeira (G. darwini).
We may also refer to the Trachichthyidæ certain species of still deeper waters, black in color and still softer in texture, with smaller scales which are often peculiar in form. These constitute the genera Caulolepis, Anoplogaster, Melamphaës, and Plectromus. In Caulolepis the jaws are armed with very strong canines.
Allied to the Trachichthyidæ are also the fossil genera Hoplopteryx and Homonotus. Hoplopteryx lewesiensis, from the English chalk, is one of the earliest of the spiny-rayed fishes.
=The Soldier-fishes: Holocentridæ.=—The soldier-fishes (Holocentridæ), also known as squirrel-fishes, Welshmen, soldados, matajuelos, malau, alehi, etc., are shore fishes very characteristic of rocky banks in the tropical seas. In this family the flesh is firm and the large scales very hard and with very rough edges. There are eleven spines in the dorsal and four in the anal, the third being usually very long. The ventral fins have one spine and seven soft rays. The whole head and body are rough with prickles. The coloration is always brilliant, the ground hue being scarlet or crimson, often with lines or stripes of white, black, or golden. The fishes are valued as food, and they furnish a large part of the beauty of coloration so characteristic of the fishes of the coral reefs. The species are active, pugnacious, carnivorous, but not especially voracious, the mouth being usually small.
The genus Holocentrus is characterized by the presence of a large spine on the angle of the preopercle. Its species are especially numerous, Holocentrus ascenscionis, abundant in Cuba, ranges northward in the Gulf Stream. Holocentrus suborbitalis, the mojarra cardenal, is a small, relatively dull species swarming about the rocks of western Mexico. Holocentrus spinosissimus is a characteristic fish of Japan. Many other species abound throughout Polynesia and the East Indies, as well as in tropical America. Holocentrus ruber and Holocentrus diadema are common species of Polynesia and the East Indies. Other abundant species are H. spinifer, H. microstomus, and H. violascens.
Holocentrus marianus is the marian of the French West Indies. Holocentrus sammara, and related large-mouthed species occur in Polynesia.
In Myripristis the preopercular spine is wanting and the air-bladder is divided into two parts, the anterior extending to the ear. Myripristis jacobus is the brilliantly colored candil, or "Frère Jacques," of the West Indies. Species of Myripristis are known in Hawaii as u-u. A curious method of catching Myripristis murdjan is pursued on the Island of Hawaii. A living fish is suspended by a cord in front of a reef inhabited by this species. It remains with scarlet fins spread and glistening red scales. Its presence is a challenge to other individuals, who rush out to attack it. These are then drawn out by a concealed scoop-net, and a fresh specimen is taken as a decoy. Myripristis pralinius, M. multiradiatus, and other species occur in Polynesia. Ostichthys is allied to Myripristis but with very large rough scales. Ostichthys japonicus is a large and showy fish of the waters of Japan. Ostichthys pillwaxi occurs at Honolulu. Holotrachys lima is a small, brick-red fish with small very rough scales found throughout Polynesia.
Fossil species of Holocentrus, Myripristis, and related extinct genera occur in the Eocene and Miocene. Holocentrus macrocephalus, from Monte Bolca Eocene, is one of the best known. Myricanthus leptacanthus from the same region, has very slender spines in the fins.
=The Polymixiidæ.=—The family of Polymixiidæ, or barbudos, is one of the most interesting in Ichthyology from its bewildering combination of characters belonging to different groups. With the general aspect of a Berycoid, the ventral rays I, 7, and the single dorsal fin with a few spines, Polymixia has the scales rather smooth and at the chin are two long barbels which look remarkably like those of the family of Mullidæ or Surmullets. As in the Mullidæ, there are but four branchiostegals. In other regards the two groups seem to have little in common. According to Starks, the specialized feelers at the chin are different in structure and must have been independently developed in the two groups. In Polymixia, each barbel is suspended from the hypohyal; three rudimentary branchiostegals forming its thickened base. In Mullus, each barbel is suspended from the trip of a slender projection of the ceratohyal, having no connection with the branchiostegals. Polymixia possesses the orbitosphenoid bone and is a true berycoid, while the Mullidæ are genuine percoid fishes.
Four species of Polymixia are recorded from rather deep water: Polymixia nobilis from Madeira, Polymixia lowei from the West Indies, Polymixia berndti from Hawaii, and Polymixia japonica from Japan. All are plainly colored, without red.
=The Pine-cone Fishes: Monocentridæ.=—Among the most extraordinary of all fishes is the little family of Monocentridæ, or pine-cone fishes. Monocentris japonicus, the best-known species, is common on the coasts of Japan. It reaches the length of five inches. The body is covered with a coat of mail, made of rough plates which look as though carelessly put together. The dorsal spines are very strong, and each ventral fin is replaced by a very strong rough spine. The animal fully justifies the remark of its discoverer, Houttuyn (1782), that it is "the most remarkable fish which exists." It is dull golden brown in color, and in movement as sluggish as a trunkfish. A similar species, called knightfish, Monocentris gloriæ-maris, is found in Australia. No fossils allied to Monocentris are known.
XVI. PERCOMORPHI
=SUBORDER Percomorphi, the Mackerels and Perches.=—We may place in a single suborder the various groups of fishes which cluster about the perches, and the mackerels. The group is not easily definable and may contain heterogeneous elements. We may, however, arrange in it, for our present purposes, those spiny-rayed fishes having the ventral fins thoracic, of one spine and five rays (the ventral fin occasionally wanting or defective, having a reduced number of rays), the lower pharyngeal bones separate, the suborbital chain without backward extension or bony stay, the post-temporal normally developed and separate from the cranium, the premaxillary and maxillary distinct, the cranium itself without orbitosphenoid bone, having a structure not greatly unlike that of perch or mackerel, and the back-bone primitively of twenty-four vertebræ, the number increased in arctic, pelagic, or fresh-water offshoots.
The species, comprising the great body of the spiny-rayed forms, group themselves chiefly about two central families, the Scombridæ, or mackerels, and the Serranidæ, the sea-bass, with their fresh-water allies, the Percidæ, or perch.
=The Mackerel Tribe: Scombroidea.=—The two groups of Percomorphi, the mackerel-like and the perch-like, admit of no exact definition, as the one fully grades into the other. The mackerel-like forms, or Scombroidea, as a whole are defined by their adaptation for swift movement. The profile is sharp anteriorly, the tail slender, with widely forked caudal; the scales are usually small, thin, and smooth, of such a character as not to produce friction in the water.
In general the external surface is smooth, the skeleton light and strong, the muscles firm, and the species are carnivorous and predaceous. But among the multitude of forms are many variations, and some of these will seem to be exceptions to any definition of mackerel-like fishes which could possibly be framed.
The mackerels, or Scombroidea, have usually the tail very slender, composed of very strong bones, with widely forked fin. In the perch and bass the tail is stout, composed largely of flesh, the supporting vertebræ relatively small and spread out fan-fashion behind. Neither mackerels nor perch nor any of their near allies ever have more than five soft rays in the ventral fins, and the persistence of this number throughout the Percomorphi, Squamipinnes, Pharyngognathi, and spiny fishes generally must be attributed to inheritance from the primitive perch-like or mackerel-like forms. In almost all the groups to be considered in this work, after the Berycoidea the ventral rays are I, 5, or else fewer through degeneration, never more. In the central or primitive members of most of these groups there are twenty-four vertebræ, the number increased in certain forms, probably through repetitive degeneration.
=The True Mackerels: Scombridæ.=—We may first consider the great central family of Scombridæ, or true mackerels, distinguished among related families by their swift forms, smooth scales, metallic coloration, and technically by the presence of a number of detached finlets behind the dorsal and anal fins. The cut of the mouth is peculiar, the spines in the fins are feeble, the muscular system is extremely strong, the flesh oily, and the air-bladder reduced in size or altogether wanting. As in most swift-swimming fishes and fishes of pelagic habit, the vertebræ are numerous and relatively small, an arrangement which promotes flexibility of body. It is not likely that this group is the most primitive of the scombroid fishes. In some respects the Stromateidæ stand nearer the primitive stock. The true mackerels, however, furnish the most convenient point of departure in reviewing the great group.
In the genus of true mackerels, Scomber, the dorsal fins are well separated, the first being rather short, and the scales of the shoulders are not modified to form a corselet. There are numerous species, two of them of general interest. The common mackerel, Scomber scombrus, is one of the best known of food-fishes. It is probably confined to the Atlantic, where on both shores it runs in vast schools, the movements varying greatly from season to season, the preference being for cool waters. The female mackerel produces about 500,000 eggs each year, according to Professor Goode. These are very minute and each is provided with an oil-globule, which causes it to float on the surface. About 400,000 barrels of mackerel are salted yearly by the mackerel fleet of Massachusetts. Single schools of mackerel, estimated to contain a million barrels, have been recorded. Captain Harding describes such a school as "a windrow of fish half a mile wide and twenty miles long."
Professor Goode writes:
"Upon the abundance of mackerel depends the welfare of many thousands of the citizens of Massachusetts and Maine. The success of the mackerel-fishery is much more uncertain than that of the cod-fishery, for instance, for the supply of cod is quite uniform from year to year. The prospects of each season are eagerly discussed from week to week in thousands of little circles along the coast, and are chronicled by the local press. The story of each successful trip is passed from mouth to mouth, and is a matter of general congratulation in each fishing community. A review of the results of the American mackerel-fishery, and of the movements of the fish in each part of the season, would be an important contribution to the literature of the American fisheries.
"The mackerel-fishery is peculiarly American, and its history is full of romance. There are no finer vessels afloat than the American mackerel-schooners—yachts of great speed and unsurpassed for seaworthiness. The modern instruments of capture are marvels of inventive skill, and require the highest degree of energy and intelligence on the part of the fishermen. The crews of the mackerel-schooners are still for the most part Americans of the old colonial stock, although the cod and halibut fisheries are to a great extent given up to foreigners.
"When the mackerel is caught, trout, bass, and sheepshead cannot vanquish him in a gastronomic tournament. In Holland, to be sure, the mackerel is not prized, and is accused of tasting like rancid fish-oil, and in England, even, they are usually lean and dry, like the wretched skeletons which are brought to market in April and May by the southern fleet, which goes forth in the early spring from Massachusetts to intercept the schools as they approach the coasts of Carolina and Virginia. They are not worthy of the name of mackerel. Scomber Scombrus is not properly in season until the spawning time is over, when the schools begin to feed at the surface in the Gulf of Maine and the 'North Bay.'
"Just from the water, fat enough to broil in its own drippings, or slightly corned in strong brine, caught at night and eaten in the morning, a mackerel or a bluefish is unsurpassable. A well-cured autumn mackerel is perhaps the finest of all salted fish, but in these days of wholesale capture by the purse-seine, hasty dressing and careless handling, it is very difficult to obtain a sweet and sound salt mackerel. Salt mackerel may be boiled as well as broiled, and a fresh mackerel may be cooked in the same manner. Americans will usually prefer to do without the sauce of fennel and gooseberry which transatlantic cooks recommend. Fresh and salt, fat and lean, new or stale, mackerel are consumed by Americans in immense quantities, as the statistics show, and whatever their state, always find ready sale."
Smaller, less important, less useful, but far more widely distributed is the chub-mackerel, or thimble-eyed mackerel, Scomber japonicus (Houttuyn, 1782), usually known by the later name of Scomber colias (Gmelin, 1788). In this species the air-bladder (absent in the common mackerel) is moderately developed. It very much resembles the true mackerel, but is of smaller size, less excellence as a food-fish, and keeps nearer to the shore. It may be usually distinguished by the presence of vague, dull-gray spots on the sides, where the true mackerel is lustrous silvery.
This fish is common in the Mediterranean, along our Atlantic coast, on the coast of California, and everywhere in Japan.
Scomber antarcticus is the familiar mackerel of Australia. Scomber loo, silvery, with round black spots, is the common mackerel of the South Seas, locally known as Ga.
Scomber priscus is a fossil mackerel from the Eocene.
Auxis thazard, the frigate mackerel, has the scales of the shoulders enlarged and somewhat coalescent, forming what is called a corselet. The species ranges widely through the seas of the world in great numbers, but very erratic, sometimes myriads reaching our Eastern coast, then none seen for years. It is more constant in its visits to Japan and Hawaii. Fossil species of Auxis are found in the Miocene.
The genus Gymnosarda has the corselet as in Auxis, but the first dorsal fin is long, extending backward to the base of the second. Its two species, Gymnosarda pelamis, the Oceanic bonito, and Gymnosarda alleterata, the little tunny, are found in all warm seas, being especially abundant in the Mediterranean, about Hawaii and Japan. These are plump fish of moderate size, with very red and very oily flesh.
Closely related to these is the great tunny, or Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) found in all warm seas and reaching at times a weight of 1500 pounds. These enormous fishes are much valued by anglers, a popular "Tuna Club" devoted to the sport of catching them with a hook having its headquarters at Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, in California. They are good food, although the flesh of the large ones is very oily. The name horse-mackerel is often given to these monsters on the New England coast. In California, the Spanish name of tuna has become current among fisherman.
Very similar to the tuna, but much smaller, is the Albacore (Germo alalonga). This reaches a weight of fifteen to thirty pounds, and is known by its very long, almost ribbon-like pectoral fins. This species is common in the Mediterranean, and about the Santa Barbara Islands, where it runs in great schools in March. The flesh of the albacore is of little value, unless, as in Japan, it is eaten raw. The Japanese shibi (Germo germo) is another large albacore, having the finlets bright yellow. It is found also at Hawaii.
The bonito (Sarda sarda) wanders far throughout the Atlantic, abounding on our Atlantic coast as in the Mediterranean, coming inshore in summer to spawn or feed. Its flesh is red and not very delicate, though it may be reckoned as a fair food-fish. It is often served under the name of "Spanish mackerel" to the injury of the reputation of the better fish.
Professor Goode writes:
"One of these fishes is a marvel of beauty and strength. Every line in its contour is suggestive of swift motion. The head is shaped like a minie bullet, the jaws fit together so tightly that a knife-edge could scarcely pass between, the eyes are hard, smooth, their surfaces on a perfect level with the adjoining surfaces. The shoulders are heavy and strong, the contours of the powerful masses of muscle gently and evenly merging into the straighter lines in which the contour of the body slopes back to the tail. The dorsal fin is placed in a groove into which it is received, like the blade of a clasp-knife in its handle. The pectoral and ventral fins also fit into depressions in the sides of the fish. Above and below, on the posterior third of the body, are placed the little finlets, each a little rudder with independent motions of its own, by which the course of the fish may be readily steered. The tail itself is a crescent-shaped oar, without flesh, almost without scales, composed of bundles of rays flexible, yet almost as hard as ivory. A single sweep of this powerful oar doubtless suffices to propel the bonito a hundred yards, for the polished surfaces of its body can offer little resistance to the water. I have seen a common dolphin swimming round and round a steamship, advancing at the rate of twelve knots an hour, the effort being hardly perceptible. The wild duck is said to fly seventy miles in an hour. Who can calculate the speed of the bonito? It might be done by the aid of the electrical contrivances by which is calculated the initial velocity of a projectile. The bonitoes in our sounds to-day may have been passing Cape Colony or the Land of Fire day before yesterday."
Another bonito, Sarda chilensis, is common in California; in Chile, and in Japan. This species has fewer dorsal spines than the bonito of the Atlantic, but the same size, coloration, and flesh. Both are blue, with undulating black stripes along the side of the back.
The genus Scomberomorus includes mackerels slenderer in form, with larger teeth, no corselet, and the flesh comparatively pale and free from oil.
Scomberomorus maculatus, the Spanish mackerel of the West Indies, is one of the noblest of food-fishes. Its biography was written by Mitchill almost a century ago in these words:
"A fine and beautiful fish; comes in July."
Goode thus writes of it:
"The Spanish mackerel is surely one of the most graceful of fishes. It appeals as scarcely any other can to our love of beauty, when we look upon it, as shown in Kilbourn's well-known painting, darting like an arrow just shot from the bow, its burnished sides, silver flecked with gold, thrown into bold relief by the cool green background of the rippled sea; the transparent grays, opalescent whites, and glossy blacks of its trembling fins enhance the metallic splendor of its body, until it seems to rival the most brilliant of tropical birds. Kilbourn made copies of his large painting on the pearly linings of seashells and produced some wonderful effects by allowing the natural luster of the mother-of-pearl to show through his transparent pigments and simulate the brilliancy of the life-inspired hues of the quivering, darting sea-sprite, whose charms even his potent brush could not properly depict.
"It is a lover of the sun, a fish of tropical nature, which comes to us only in midsummer, and which disappears with the approach of cold, to some region not yet explored by ichthyologists. It is doubtless very familiar in winter to the inhabitants of some region adjacent to the waters of the Caribbean or the tropical Atlantic, but until this place shall have been discovered it is more satisfactory to suppose that with the bluefish and the mackerel it inhabits that hypothetical winter resort to which we send the migratory fishes whose habits we do not understand—the middle strata of the ocean, the floating beds of Sargassum, which drift hither and thither under the alternate promptings of the Gulf-stream currents and the winter winds."
The Spanish mackerel swims at the surface in moderate schools and is caught in abundance from Cape May southward. Its white flesh is most delicious, when properly grilled, and Spanish mackerel, like pampano, should be cooked in no other way.
A very similar species, Scomberomorus sierra, occurs on the west coast of Mexico. For some reason it is little valued as food by the Mexicans. In California, the Monterey Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus concolor) is equally excellent as a food-fish. This fish lacks the spots characteristic of most of its relatives. It was first found in the Bay of Monterey, especially at Santa Cruz and Soquel, in abundance in the autumn of 1879 and 1880. It has not, so far as is known, been seen since, nor is the species recorded from any other coast.
The true Spanish mackerel has round, bronze-black spots upon its sides. Almost exactly like it in appearance is the pintado, or sierra (Scomberomorus regalis), but in this species the spots are oblong in form. The pintado abounds in the West Indies. Its flesh is less delicate than that of the more true Spanish mackerel. The name sierra, saw, commonly applied to these fishes by Spanish-speaking people, has been corrupted into cero in some books on angling.
Still other Spanish mackerel of several species occur on the coasts of India, Chile, and Japan.
The great kingfish, or cavalla (Scomberomorus cavalla), is a huge Spanish mackerel of Cuba and the West Indies, reaching a weight of 100 pounds. It is dark iron-gray in color, one of the best of food-fishes, and is unspotted, and its firm, rich flesh resembles that of the barracuda.
Still larger is the great guahu, or peto, an immense sharp-nosed, swift-swimming mackerel found in the East and West Indies, as well as in Polynesia, reaching a length of six feet and a weight of more than a hundred pounds. Its large knife-like teeth are serrated on the edge and the color is almost black. Acanthocybium solandri is the species found in Hawaii and Japan. The American Acanthocybium petus, occasionally also taken in the Mediterranean, may be the same species.
Fossil Spanish mackerels, tunnies, and albacores, as well as representatives of related genera now extinct, abound in the Eocene and Miocene, especially in northern Italy. Among them are Scomber antiquus from the Miocene, Scombrinus macropomus from the Eocene London clays, much like Scomber, but with stronger teeth, Sphyrænodus priscus from the same deposits, the teeth still larger, Scombramphodon crossidens, from the same deposits, also with strong teeth, like those of Scomberomorus. Scomberomorus is the best represented of all the genera as fossil, Scomberomorus speciosus and numerous other species occurring in the Eocene. A fossil species of Germo, G. lanceolatus, occurs at Monte Bolca in Eocene rocks. Another tunny, with very small teeth is Eothynnus salmonens, from the lower Eocene near London. Several other tunny-like fishes occur in the lower Tertiary.
=The Escolars: Gempylidæ.=—More predaceous than the mackerels and tunnies are the pelagic mackerels, Gempylidæ, known as escolars ("scholars"), with the body almost band-shaped and the teeth very large and sharp. Some of these, from the ocean depths, are violet-black in color, those near the surface being silvery. Escolar violaceus lives in the abysses of the Gulf Stream. Ruvettus pretiosus, the black escolar, lives in more moderate depths and is often taken in Cuba, Madeira, Hawaii, and Japan. It is a very large fish, black, with very rough scales. The flesh is white, soft, and full of oil; sometimes rated very high, and at other times too rank to be edible. The name escolar means scholar in Spanish, but its root meaning, as applied to this fish, comes from a word meaning to scour, in allusion to the very rough scales.
Promethichthys prometheus, the rabbit-fish, or conejo, so-called from its wariness, is caught in the same regions, being especially common about Madeira and Hawaii. Gempylus serpens, the snake-mackerel, is a still slenderer and more voracious fish of the open seas. Thyrsites atun is the Australian "barracuda," a valued food-fish, voracious and predaceous.
=Scabbard-and Cutlass-fishes: Lepidopidæ and Trichiuridæ.=—The family of Lepidopidæ, or scabbard-fishes, includes degenerate mackerels, band-shaped, with continuous dorsal fin, and the long jaws armed with very small teeth. These are found in the open sea, Lepidopus candatus being the most common. This species reaches a length of five or six feet and comes to different coasts occasionally to deposit its spawn. It lives in warm water and is at once chilled by the least cold; hence the name of frostfish occasionally applied to it. Several species of Lepidopus are fossil in the later Tertiary. Lepidopus glarisianus occurs in the Swiss Oligocene, and with it Thyrsitocephalus alpinus, which approaches more nearly to the Gempylidæ.
Still more degenerate are the Trichiuridæ, or cutlass-fishes, in which the caudal fin is wanting, the tail ending in a hair-like filament. The species are bright silvery in color, very slender, and very voracious, reaching a length of three to five feet. Trichiurus lepturus is rather common on our Atlantic coast. The names hairfish and silver-eel, among others, are often given to it. Trichiurus japonicas, a very similar species, is common in Japan, and other species inhabit the tropical seas. Trichiurichthys, a fossil genus with well-developed scales, precedes Trichiurus in the Miocene.
=The Palæorhynchidæ.=—The extinct family of Palæorhynchidæ is found from the Eocene to the Oligocene. It contains very long and slender fishes, with long jaws and small teeth, the dorsal fin long and continuous. The species resembles the Escolar on the one hand and the sailfishes on the other, and they may prove to be ancestral to the Istiophoridæ. Hemirhynchus deshayesi with the upper jaw twice as long as the lower, sword-like, occurs in the Eocene at Paris; Palæorhynchum glarisianum, with the jaws both elongate, the lower longest, is in the Oligocene of Glarus. Several other species of both genera are recorded.
=The Sailfishes: Istiophoridæ.=—Remotely allied to the cutlass-fishes and still nearer to the Palæorhynchidæ is the family of sailfishes, Istiophoridæ, having the upper jaw prolonged into a sword made of consolidated bones. The teeth are very feeble and the ventral fins reduced to two or three rays. The species are few in number, of large size, and very brilliant metallic coloration, inhabiting the warm seas, moving northward in summer. They are excellent as food, similar to the swordfish in this as in many other respects. The species are not well known, being too large for museum purposes, and no one having critically studied them in the field. Istiophorus has the dorsal fin very high, like a great sail, and undivided; Istiophorus nigricans is rather common about the Florida Keys, where it reaches a length of six feet. Its great sail, blue with black spots, is a very striking object. Closely related to this is Istiophorus orientalis of Japan and other less known species of the East Indies.
Tetrapturus, the spearfish, has the dorsal fin low and divided into two parts. Its species are taken in most warm seas, Tetrapturus imperator throughout the Atlantic, Tetrapturus amplus in Cuba, Tetrapturus mitsukurii and Tetrapturus mazara in Japan. These much resemble swordfish in form and habits, and they have been known to strike boats in the same way.
Fossil Istiophoridæ are known only from fragments of the snout, in Europe and America, referred provisionally to Istiophorus. The genus Xiphiorhynchus, fossil swordfishes from the Eocene, known from the skull only, may be referred to this family, as minute teeth are present in the jaws. Xiphiorhynchus priscus is found in the London Eocene.
=The Swordfishes: Xiphiidæ.=—The family of swordfishes, Xiphiidæ, consists of a single species, Xiphias gladius, of worldwide distribution in the warm seas. The snout in the swordfish is still longer, more perfectly consolidated, and a still more effective weapon of attack. The teeth are wholly wanting, and there are no ventral fins, while the second of the two fins on the back is reduced to a slight finlet.
The swordfish follows the schools of mackerel to the New England coasts. "Where you see swordfish, you may know that mackerel are about," Goode quotes from an old fisherman. The swordfish swims near the surface, allowing its dorsal fin to appear, as also the upper lobe of the caudal. It often leaps out of the water, and none of all the fishes of the sea can swim more swiftly.
"The pointed head," says Goode, "the fins of the back and abdomen snugly fitting into grooves, the absence of ventrals, the long, lithe, muscular body, sloping slowly to the tail, fit it for the most rapid and forcible movement through the water. Prof. Richard Owen, testifying in an England court in regard to its power, said:
"'It strikes with the accumulated force of fifteen double-handed hammers. Its velocity is equal to that of a swivel-shot, and is as dangerous in its effects as a heavy artillery projectile.'
"Many very curious instances are on record of the encounters of this fish with other fishes, or of their attacks upon ships. What can be the inducement for it to attack objects so much larger than itself it is hard to surmise.
"It surely seems as if a temporary insanity sometimes takes possession of the fish. It is not strange that, when harpooned, it should retaliate by attacking its assailant. An old swordfish fisherman told Mr. Blackford that his vessel had been struck twenty times. There are, however, many instances of entirely unprovoked assault on vessels at sea. Many of these are recounted in a later portion of this memoir. Their movements when feeding are discussed below, as well as their alleged peculiarities of movement during the breeding season.
"It is the universal testimony of our fishermen that two are never seen swimming close together. Capt. Ashby says that they are always distant from each other at least thirty or forty feet.
"The pugnacity of the swordfish has become a byword. Without any special effort on my part numerous instances of their attacks upon vessels have in the last ten years found their way into the pigeon-hole labeled 'Swordfish.'"
Swordfishes are common on both shores of the Atlantic wherever mackerel run. They do not breed on our shores, but probably do so in the Mediterranean and other warm seas. They are rare off the California coast, but five records existing (Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, San Diego, off Cerros Island). The writer has seen two large individuals in the market of Yokohama, but it is scarcely known in Japan. As a food-fish, the swordfish is one of the best, its dark-colored oily flesh, though a little coarse, making most excellent steaks. Its average weight on our coast is about 300 pounds, the maximum 625.
The swordfish undergoes great change in the process of development, the very young having the head armed with rough spines and in nowise resembling the adult.
Fossil swordfishes are unknown, or perhaps cannot be distinguished from remains of Istiophoridæ.
XVII. CAVALLAS AND PAMPANOS
=THE Pampanos: Carangidæ.=—We next take up the great family of Pampanos, Carangidæ, distinguished from the Scombridæ as a whole by the shorter, deeper body, the fewer and larger vertebræ, and by the loss of the provision for swift movement in the open sea characteristic of the mackerels and their immediate allies. A simple mark of the Carangidæ is the presence of two separate spines in front of the anal fin. These spines are joined to the fin in the young. All of the species undergo considerable changes with age, and almost all are silvery in color with metallic blue on the back.
Most like the true mackerel are the "leather-jackets," or "runners," forming the genera Scomberoides and Oligoplites. Scomberoides of the Old World has the body scaly, long, slender, and fitted for swift motion; Scomberoides sancti-petri is a widely diffused species, and others are found in Polynesia. In the New World genus Oligoplites the scales are reduced to linear ridges imbedded in the skin at different angles. Oligoplites saurus is a common dry and bony fish abounding in the West Indies and ranging north in summer to Cape Cod.
Naucrates ductor, the pilot-fish, or romero, inhabits the open sea, being taken—everywhere rarely—in Europe, the West Indies, Hawaii, and Japan. It is marked by six black cross-bands. Its tail has a keel, and it reaches a length of about two feet. In its development it undergoes considerable change, its first dorsal fin being finally reduced to disconnected spines.
The amber-fishes, forming the genus Seriola, are rather robust fishes, with the anal fin much shorter than the soft dorsal. The sides of the tail have a low, smooth keel. From a yellow streak obliquely across the head in some species they receive their Spanish name of coronado. The species are numerous, found in all warm seas, of fair quality as food, and range in length from two to six feet.
Seriola dorsalis is the noted yellow-tail of California, valued by anglers for its game qualities. It comes to the Santa Barbara Islands in early summer. Seriola zonata is the rudder-fish, or shark's pilot, common on our New England coast. The banded young, abundant off Cape Cod, lose their marks with age. Seriola hippos is the "samson-fish" of Australia. Seriola lalandi is the great amber-fish of the West Indies, occasionally venturing farther northward, and Seriola dumerili the amber-jack, or coronado, of the Mediterranean. The deep-bodied medregal (Seriola fasciata) is also taken in the West Indies, as is also the high-finned Seriola rivoliana. Species very similar to these occur in Hawaii and Japan, where they are known as Ao, or bluefishes. Seriola lata is fossil in the mountains of Tuscany.
The runner, Elegatis bipinnulatus, differs from Seriola in having a finlet behind dorsal and anal. It is found in almost all warm seas, ranging north once in a while to Long Island.
The mackerel scads (Decapterus) have also a finlet, and on the posterior part of the body the lateral line is shielded with bony plates. In size and form these little fishes much resemble small mackerel, and they are much valued as food wherever abundant. Decapterus punclatus, known also as cigar-fish and round-robin, frequently visits our Atlantic coasts from the West Indies, where it is abundant. Decapterus russelli is the Maruaji, highly valued in Japan for its abundance, while Decapterus muroadsi is the Japanese muroaji.
Megalaspis cordyla abounds in the East Indies and Polynesia. It has many finlets, and the bony plates on the lateral line are developed to an extraordinary degree.
In Trachurus the finlets are lost and the bony plates extend the whole length of the lateral line. The species known as saurel and wrongly called horse-mackerel are closely related and some of them very widely distributed.
Trachurus trachurus common in Europe, extends to Japan where it is the abundant maaji. Trachurus mediterraneus is common in southern Europe and Trachurus symmetricus in California. Trachurus picturatus of Madeira is much the same as the last named, and there is much question as to the right names and proper limits of all these species.
In Trachurops the bony plates are lacking on the anterior half of the body, and there is a peculiar nick and projection on the lower part of the anterior edge of the shoulder-girdle. Trachurops crumenophthalma, the goggler, or big-eyed scad, ranges widely in the open sea and at Hawaii, as the Akule, is the most highly valued because most abundant of the migratory fishes. At Samoa it is equally abundant, the name being here Atule. Trachurops torva is the meaji, or big-eyed scad, of the Japanese, always abundant.
To Caranx, Carangus, and a number of related genera, characterized by the bony armature on the narrow caudal peduncle, a host of species may be referred. These fishes, known as cavallas, hard-tails, jacks, etc., are broad-bodied, silvery or metallic black in color, and are found in all warm seas. They usually move from the tropics northward in the fall in search of food and are especially abundant on our Atlantic coast, in Polynesia, and in Japan. About the Oceanic Islands they are resident, these being their chosen spawning-grounds. In Hawaii and Samoa they form a large part of the food-supply, the ulua (Carangus forsteri) and the malauli (Carangus melampygus) being among the most valuable food-fishes, large in size and excellent in flesh, unsurpassed in fish chowders. Of the American species Carangus chrysos, called yellow mackerel, is the most abundant, ranging from Cape Cod southward. This is an elongate species of moderate size. The cavalla, or jiguagua, Carangus hippos, known by the black spot on the opercle, with another on the pectoral fin, is a widely distributed species and one of the largest of the tribe. Another important food-fish is the horse-eye-jack, or jurel, Carangus latus, which is very similar to the species called ulua in the Pacific. The black jack, or tiñosa, of Cuba, Carangus funebris, is said to be often poisonous. This is a very large species, black in color, the sale of which has been long forbidden in the markets of Havana. The young of different species of Carangus are often found taking refuge under the disk of jelly-fishes protected by the stinging feelers. The species of the genus Carangus have well-developed teeth. In the restricted genus of Caranx proper, the jaws are toothless. Caranx speciosus, golden with dark cross-bands, is a large food-fish of the Pacific. Citula armata is another widely distributed species, with some of the dorsal rays produced in long filaments.
In Alectis ciliaris, the cobbler-fish, or threadfish, the armature of the tail is very slight and each fin has some of its rays drawn out into long threads. In the young these are very much longer than the body, but with age they wear off and grow shorter, while the body becomes more elongate. In Vomer, Selene, and Chloroscombrus the bony armature of the tail, feeble in Alectis, by degrees entirely disappears.
Vomer setipinnis, the so-called moonfish, or jorobado, has the body greatly elevated, compressed, and distorted, while the fins, growing shorter with age, become finally very low. Selene vomer, the horse-head-fish, or look-down (see Fig. 113, Vol. I), is similarly but even more distorted. The fins, filamentous in the young, grow shorter with age, as in Vomer and Alectis. The skeleton in these fishes is essentially like that of Carangus, the only difference lying in the compression and distortion of the bones. Chloroscombrus contains the casabes, or bumpers, thin, dry, compressed fish, of little value as food, the bony armature of the tail being wholly lost.
To the genus Trachinotus belong the pampanos, broad-bodied, silvery fishes, toothless when adult, the bodies covered with small scales and with no bony plates.
The true pampano, Trachinotus carolinus, is one of the finest of all food-fishes, ranking with the Spanish mackerel and to be cooked in the same way, only by broiling. The flesh is white, firm, and flaky, with a moderate amount of delicate oil. It has no especial interest to the angler and it is not abundant enough to be of great commercial importance, yet few fish bring or deserve to bring higher prices in the markets of the epicures. The species is most common along our Gulf coast, ranging northward along the Carolinas as far as Cape Cod.
Pampano in Spanish means the leaf of the grape, from the broad body of the fish. The spelling "pompano" should therefore be discouraged.
The other pampanos, of which there are several in tropical America and Asia, are little esteemed, the flesh being dry and relatively flavorless. Trachinotus palometa, the gaff-topsail pampano, has very high fins and its sides have four black bands like the marks of a grill. The round pampano, Trachinotus falcatus, is common southward, as is also the great pampano, Trachinotus goodei, which reaches a length of three feet. Trachinotus ovatus, a large deep-bodied pampano, is common in Polynesia and the East Indies. No pampanos are found in Europe, but a related genus, Lichia, contains species which much resemble them, but in which the body is more elongate and the mouth larger.
Numerous fossils are referred to the Carangidæ with more or less certainty. Aipichthys pretiosus and other species occur in the Cretaceous. These are deep-bodied fishes resembling Seriola, having the falcate dorsal twice as long as the anal and the ventral ridge with thickened scales. Vomeropsis (longispina elongata, etc.), also from the Eocene, with rounded caudal, the anterior dorsal rays greatly elongate, and the supraoccipital crest highly developed, probably constitutes with it a distinct family, Vomeropsidæ. Several species referable to Carangus are found in the Miocene. Archæus glarisianus, resembling Carangus, but without scales so far as known, is found in the Oligocene of Glarus; Seriola prisca and other species of Seriola occur in the Eocene; Carangopsis brevis, etc., allied to Caranx, but with the lateral line unarmed, is recorded from the Eocene of France and Italy.
Ductor leptosomus from the Eocene of Monte Bolca resembles Naucrates; Trachinotus tenuiceps is recorded from Monte Bolca, and a species of uncertain relationship, called Pseudovomer minutus, with sixteen caudal vertebræ is taken from the Miocene of Licata.
=The Papagallos: Nematistiidæ.=—Very close to the Carangidæ, and especially to the genus Seriola, is the small family of Nematistiidæ, containing the papagallo, Nematistius pectoralis of the west coast of Mexico. This large and beautiful fish has the general appearance of an amber-fish, but the dorsal spines are produced in long filaments. The chief character of the family is found in the excessive division of the rays of the pectoral fins.
=The Bluefishes: Cheilodipteridæ.=—Allied to the Carangidæ is the family of bluefishes (Cheilodipteridæ, or Pomatomidæ). The single species Cheilodipterus saltatrix, or Pomatomus saltatrix, known as the bluefish, is a large, swift, extremely voracious fish, common throughout most of the warmer parts of the Atlantic, but very irregularly distributed on the various coasts. Its distribution is doubtless related to its food. It is more abundant on our Eastern coast than anywhere else, and its chief food here is the menhaden. The bluefish differs from the Carangidæ mainly in its larger scales, and in a slight serration of the bones of the head. Its flesh is tender and easily torn. As a food-fish, rich, juicy, and delicate, it has few superiors. Its maximum weight is from twelve to twenty pounds, but most of those taken are much smaller. It is one of the most voracious of all fish. Concerning this, Professor Baird observes:
"There is no parallel in point of destructiveness to the bluefish among the marine species on our coast, whatever may be the case among some of the carnivorous fish of the South American waters. The bluefish has been well likened to an animated chopping-machine the business of which is to cut to pieces and otherwise destroy as many fish as possible in a given space of time. All writers are unanimous in regard to the destructiveness of the bluefish. Going in large schools in pursuit of fish not much inferior to themselves in size, they move along like a pack of hungry wolves, destroying everything before them. Their trail is marked by fragments of fish and by the stain of blood in the sea, as, where the fish is too large to be swallowed entire, the hinder portion will be bitten off and the anterior part allowed to float away or sink. It is even maintained with great earnestness that such is the gluttony of the fish, that when the stomach becomes full the contents are disgorged and then again filled. It is certain that it kills many more fish than it requires for its own support.
"The youngest fish, equally with the older, perform this function of destruction, and although they occasionally devour crabs, worms, etc., the bulk of their sustenance throughout the greater part of the year is derived from other fish. Nothing is more common than to find a small bluefish of six or eight inches in length under a school of minnows making continual dashes and captures among them. The stomachs of the bluefish of all sizes, with rare exceptions, are found loaded with the other fish, sometimes to the number of thirty or forty, either entire or in fragments.
"As already referred to, it must also be borne in mind that it is not merely the small fry that are thus devoured, and which it is expected will fall a prey to other animals, but that the food of the bluefish consists very largely of individuals which have already passed a large percentage of the chances against their reaching maturity, many of them, indeed, having arrived at the period of spawning. To make the case more clear, let us realize for a moment the number of bluefish that exist on our coast in the summer season. As far as I can ascertain by the statistics obtained at the fishing-stations on the New England coast, as also from the records of the New York markets, kindly furnished by Middleton & Carman, of the Fulton Market, the capture of bluefish from New Jersey to Monomoy during the season amounts to no less than one million individuals, averaging five or six pounds each. Those, however, who have seen the bluefish in his native waters and realized the immense numbers there existing will be quite willing to admit that probably not one fish in a thousand is ever taken by man. If, therefore, we have an actual capture of one million, we may allow one thousand millions as occurring in the extent of our coasts referred to, even neglecting the smaller ones, which, perhaps, should also be taken into account.
"An allowance of ten fish per day to each bluefish is not excessive, according to the testimony elicited from the fishermen and substantiated by the stomachs of those examined; this gives ten thousand millions of fish destroyed per day. And as the period of the stay of the bluefish on the New England coast is at least one hundred and twenty days, we have in round numbers twelve hundred million millions of fish devoured in the course of a season. Again, if each bluefish, averaging five pounds, devours or destroys even half its own weight of other fish per day (and I am not sure that the estimate of some witnesses of twice this weight is not more nearly correct), we will have, during the same period, a daily loss of twenty-five hundred million pounds, equal to three hundred thousand millions for the season.
"This estimate applies to three or four year old fish of at least three to five pounds in weight. We must, however, allow for those of smaller size, and a hundred-fold or more in number, all engaged simultaneously in the butchery referred to.
"We can scarcely conceive of a number so vast; and however much we may diminish, within reason, the estimate of the number of bluefish and the average of their capture, there still remains an appalling aggregate of destruction. While the smallest bluefish feed upon the diminutive fry, those of which we have taken account capture fish of large size, many of them, if not capable of reproduction, being within at least one or two years of that period.
"It is estimated by very good authority that of the spawn deposited by any fish at a given time not more than 30 per cent. are hatched, and that less than 10 per cent. attain an age when they are able to take care of themselves. As their age increases the chances of reaching maturity become greater and greater. It is among the small residuum of this class that the agency of the bluefish is exercised and whatever reasonable reduction may be made in our estimate, we cannot doubt that they exert a material influence.
"The rate of growth of the bluefish is also an evidence of the immense amount of food they must consume. The young fish which first appear along the shores of Vineyard Sound, about the middle of August, are about five inches in length. By the beginning of September, however, they have reached six or seven inches, and on their reappearance in the second year they measure about twelve or fifteen inches. After this they increase in a still more rapid ratio. A fish which passes eastward from Vineyard Sound in the spring weighing five pounds is represented, according to the general impression, by the ten to fifteen-pound fish of the autumn. If this be the fact, the fish of three or four pounds which pass along the coast of North Carolina in March return to it in October weighing ten to fifteen pounds.
"As already explained, the relationship of these fish to the other inhabitants of the sea is that of an unmitigated butcher; and it is able to contend successfully with any other species not superior to itself in size. It is not known whether an entire school ever unite in an attack upon a particular object of prey, as is said to be the case with the ferocious fishes of the South American rivers; should they do so, no animal, however large, could withstand their onslaught.
"They appear to eat anything that swims of suitable size—fish of all kinds, but perhaps more especially the menhaden, which they seem to follow along the coast, and which they attack with such ferocity as to drive them on the shore, where they are sometimes piled up in windrows to the depth of a foot or more."
=The Sergeant-fishes: Rachycentridæ.=—The Rachycentridæ, or sergeant-fishes, are large, strong, swift, voracious shore fishes, with large mouths and small teeth, ranging northward from the warm seas. The dorsal spines are short and stout, separate from the fin, and the body is almost cylindrical, somewhat like that of the pike.
Rachycentron canadum, called cobia, crab-eater, snooks, or sergeant-fish, reaches a length of about five feet. The last name is supposed to allude to the black stripe along its side, like the stripe on a sergeant's trousers. It is rather common in summer along our Atlantic coast as far as Cape Cod, especially in Chesapeake Bay. Rachycentron pondicerrianum, equally voracious, extends its summer depredations as far as Japan. The more familiar name for these fishes, Elacate, is of later date than Rachycentron.
Mr. Prime thus speaks of the crab-eater as a game-fish:
"In shape he may be roughly likened to the great northern pike, with a similar head, flattened on the forehead. He is dark green on the back, growing lighter on the sides, but the distinguishing characteristic is a broad, dark collar over the neck, from which two black stripes or straps, parting on the shoulders, extend, one on each side, to the tail. He looks as if harnessed with a pair of traces, and his behavior on a fly-rod is that of a wild horse. The first one that I struck, in the brackish water of Hillsborough River at Tampa, gave me a hitherto unknown sensation. The tremendous rush was not unfamiliar, but when the fierce fellow took the top of the water and went along lashing it with his tail, swift as a bullet, then descended, and with a short, sharp, electric shock left the line to come home free, I was for an instant confounded. It was all over in ten seconds. Nearly every fish that I struck after this behaved in the same way, and after I had got 'the hang of them' I took a great many."
=The Butter-fishes: Stromateidæ.=—The butter-fishes (Stromateidæ) form a large group of small fishes with short, compressed bodies, smooth scales, feeble spines, the vertebræ in increased number and especially characterized by the presence of a series of tooth-like processes in the œsophagus behind the pharyngeals. The ventral fins present in the young are often lost in the process of development.
According to Mr. Regan, the pelvic bones are very loosely attached to the shoulder-girdle as in the extinct genera Platycormus and Homosoma. This is perhaps a primitive feature, indicating the line of descent of these fishes from berycoid forms.
We unite with the Stromateidæ the groups or families of Centrolophidæ and Nomeidæ, knowing no characters by which to separate them.
Stromateus fiatola, the fiatola of the Italian fishermen, is an excellent food-fish of the Mediterranean. Poronotus triacanthus, the harvest-fish, or dollar-fish, of our Atlantic coast, is a common little silvery fish six to ten inches, as bright and almost as round as a dollar. Its tender oily flesh has an excellent flavor. Very similar to it is the poppy-fish (Palometa simillima) of the sandy shores of California, miscalled the "California pampano," valued by the San Francisco epicure, who pays large prices for it supposing it to be pampano, although admitting that the pampano in New Orleans has firmer flesh and better flavor. The harvest-fish, Peprilus paru, frequently taken on our Atlantic coast, is known by its very high fins. Stromateoides argenteus, a much larger fish than any of these, is a very important species on the coasts of China.
Psenopsis anomala takes the place of our butter-fishes in Japan, and much resembles them in appearance as in flavor.
To the Stromateidæ we also refer the black ruff of Europe, Centrolophus niger, an interesting deep-sea fish rarely straying to our coast. Allied to it is the black rudder-fish, Palinurichthys perciformis, common on the Massachusetts coast, where it is of some value as a food-fish. A specimen in a live-box once drifted to the coast of Cornwall, where it was taken uninjured, though doubtless hungry. Other species of ruff-and rudder-fish are recorded from various coasts.
Allied to the Stromateidæ are numerous fossil forms. Omosoma sachelalmæ and other species occur in the Cretaceous at Mount Lebanon. Platycormus germanus, with ctenoid scales resembling a berycoid, but with the ventral rays I, 5, occurs in the Upper Cretaceous. Closely related to this is Berycopsis elegans, with smoother scales, from the English Chalk.
Gobiomorus gronovii (usually called Nomeus gronovii), the Portuguese man-of-war-fish, is a neat little fish about three inches long, common in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream, where it hides from its enemies among the poisoned tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war. Under the Portuguese man-of-war and also in or under large jelly-fishes several other species are found, notably Carangus medusicola and Peprilus paru. Many small species of Psenes, a related genus, also abound in the warm currents from tropical seas.
=The Rag-fishes: Icosteidæ.=—Allied to the butter-fishes are the deep-water Icosteidæ, fishes of soft, limp bodies as unresistant as a wet rag, Icosteus ænigmaticus of the California coast being known as ragfish. Schedophilus medusophagus feeds on medusæ and salpa, living on the surface in the deep seas. Mr. Ogilby thus speaks of a specimen taken in Ireland:
"It was the most delicate adult fish I ever handled; within twenty-four hours after its capture the skin of the belly and the intestines fell off when it was lifted, and it felt in the hand quite soft and boneless." A related species (S. heathi) has been lately taken by Dr. Charles H. Gilbert at Monterey in California.
The family of Acrotidæ contains a single species of large size. Acrotus willoughbyi, allied to Icosteus, but without ventral fins and with the vertebræ very numerous. The type, five and one-quarter feet long, was thrown by a storm on the coast of Washington, near the Quinnault agency.
The family of Zaproridæ contains also a single large species, Zaprora silenus, without ventrals, but scaly and firm in substance. One specimen 2½ feet long was taken at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and a smaller one at Victoria.
=The Pomfrets: Bramidæ.=—The Bramidæ are broad-bodied fishes of the open seas, covered with firm adherent scales. The flesh is firm and the skeleton heavy, the hypercoracoid especially much dilated. Of the various species the pomfret, or black bream (Brama raii), is the best known and most widely diffused. It reaches a length of two to four feet and is sooty black in color. It is not rare in Europe and has been occasionally taken at Grand Bank off Newfoundland, at the Bermudas, off the coast of Washington, on Santa Catalina Island, and in Japan. It is an excellent food-fish, but is seldom seen unless driven ashore by storms.
Steinegeria rubescens of the Gulf of Mexico is a little-known deep-sea fish allied to Brama, but placed by Jordan and Evermann in a distinct family, Steinegeriidæ.
Closely related to the Bramidæ is the small family of Pteraclidæ, silvery fishes with large firm scales, living near the surface in the ocean currents. In these fishes the ventral fins are placed well forward, fairly to be called jugular, and the rays of the dorsal and anal, all inarticulate or spine-like, are excessively prolonged. The species, none of them well known, are referred to four genera— Pteraclis, Bentenia, Centropholis, and Velifer. They are occasionally taken in ocean currents, chiefly about Japan and Madeira.
Fossil forms more or less remotely allied to the Bramidæ are recorded from the Eocene and Miocene. Among these are Acanthonemus, and perhaps Pseudovomer.
=The Dolphins: Coryphænidæ.=—The dolphins, or dorados (Coryphænidæ), are large, swift sea-fishes, with elongate, compressed bodies, elevated heads, sharp like the cut-water of a boat, and with the caudal fin very strong. The long dorsal fin, elevated like a crest on the head, is without spines. The high forehead characteristic of the dolphin is developed only in the adult male. The flesh of the dolphin is valued as food. Its colors, golden-blue with deep-blue spots, fade rapidly at death, though the extent of this change has been much exaggerated. Similar changes of color occur at death in most bright-colored fishes, especially in those with thin scales. The common dolphin, or dorado (Coryphæna hippurus), is found in all warm seas swimming near the surface, as usual in predatory fishes, and reaches a length of about six feet. The small dolphin, Coryphæna equisetis, rarely exceeds 2½ feet, and is much more rare than the preceding, from which the smaller number of dorsal rays (53 instead of 60) best distinguishes it. Young dolphins of both species are elongate in form, the crest of the head not elevated, the physiognomy thus appearing very different from that of the adult. Goniognathus coryphænoides is an extinct dolphin of the Eocene.
The name dolphin, belonging properly to a group of small whales or porpoises, the genus Delphinus, has been unfortunately used in connection with this very different animal, which bears no resemblance to the mammal of the same name.
Other mackerel-like families not closely related to these occur in the warm seas. The Leiognathidæ are small, silvery fishes of the East Indies. Leiognathus argentatus (Equula) is very common in the bays of Japan, a small silvery fish of moderate value as food. Gazza minuta, similar, with strong teeth, abounds farther south. Leiognathus fasciatum is common in Polynesia. A fossil species called Parequula albyi occurs in the Miocene of Licata.
The Kurtidæ are small, short-bodied fishes of the Indian seas, with some of the ribs immovably fixed between rings formed by the ossified cover of the air-bladder and with the hypocoracoid obsolete. Kurtus indicus is the principal species.
=The Menidæ.=—Near the Kurtidæ we may perhaps place the family of Menidæ, of one species, Mene maculata, the moonfish of the open seas of the East Indies and Japan. This is a small fish, about a foot long, with the body very closely compressed, the fins low and the belly, through the extension of the pelvic bone, a good deal more prominent than the back. The ventral fins have the usual number of one spine and five soft rays, a character which separates Mene widely from Lampris, which in some ways seems allied to it.
Another species of Menidæ is the extinct Gasteronemus rhombeus of the Eocene of Monte Bolca. It has much the same form, with long pubic bones. The very long ventral fins are, however, made of one spine and one or two rays. A second species, Gasteronemus oblongus, is recorded from the same rocks.
=The Pempheridæ.=—The Pempheridæ, "deep-water catalufas," or "magifi," are rather small deep-bodied fishes, reddish in color, with very short dorsal, containing a few graduated spines, and with a very long anal fin. These inhabit tropical seas at moderate depths. Pempheris bears a superficial resemblance to Beryx, but, according to Starks, this resemblance is not borne out by the anatomy. Pempheris mulleri and P. poeyi are found in the West Indies. Pempheris otaitensis and P. mangula range through Polynesia.
Very close to the Pempheridæ is the small family of Bathyclupeidæ. These are herring-like fishes, much compressed and with a duct to the air-bladder. There are but one or two dorsal spines. The ventrals are of one spine and five rays as in perch-like fishes, but placed behind the pectoral fins. This feature, due to the shortening of the belly, is regarded by Alcock, the discoverer, as a result of degeneration, and the family was placed by him among the herrings. The persistent air-duct excludes it from the Percesoces, the normally formed ventrals from the Berycoidei. If we trust the indications of the skeleton, we must place the family with Pempheris, near the scombroid fishes.
=Luvaridæ.=—Another singular family is the group of Louvars, Luvaridæ. Luvaris imperialis. The single known species is a large, plump, voracious fish, with the dorsal and anal rays all unbranched, and the scales scurf-life over the smooth skin. It is frequently taken in the Mediterranean, and was found on the island of Santa Catalina, California, by Mr. C. F. Holden.
=The Square-tails: Tetragonuridæ.=—The Tetragonuridæ are long-bodied fishes of a plump or almost squarish form, covered with hard, firm, very adherent scales. Tetragonurus cuvieri, the single species, called square-tail, or escolar de natura, is a curious fish, looking as if whittled out of wood, covered with a compact armor of bony scales, and swimming very slowly in deep water. It is known from the open Atlantic and Mediterranean and has been once taken at Wood's Hole in Massachusetts. According to Mr. C. T. Regan the relations of this eccentric fish are with the Stromateidæ and Bramidæ, the skeleton being essentially that of Stromateus, and Boulenger places both Tetragonurus and Stromateus among the Percesoces.
=The Crested Bandfishes: Lophotidæ.=—The family of Lophotidæ consists of a few species of deep-sea fishes, band-shaped, naked, with the dorsal of flexible spines beginning as a high crest on the elevated occiput. The first spine is very strong. The ventrals are thoracic with the normal number, I, 5, of fin-rays. Lophotes cepedianus, the crested bandfish, is occasionally taken in the Mediterranean in rather deep water. Lophotes capellei is rarely taken in the deep waters of Japan.
It is thought that the Lophotidæ may be related to the ribbon-fishes, Tæniosomi, but on the whole they seem nearer to the highly modified Scombroidei, the Pteraclidæ for example.
In a natural arrangement, we should turn from the Bramidæ to the Antigoniidæ and the Ilarchidæ, then passing over the series which leads through Chætodontidæ and Teuthidæ to the Plectognaths. It is, however, necessary to include here, alongside the mackerels, though not closely related to them, the parallel series of perch-like fishes, which at the end become also hopelessly entangled, through aberrant forms, with other series of which the origin and relations are imperfectly understood. As the relations of forms cannot be expressed in a linear series, many pages must intervene before we can take up the supposed line of development from the Scombroid fishes to those called Squamipinnes.
XVIII. PERCOIDEA, OR PERCH-LIKE FISHES
=PERCOID Fishes.=—We may now take up the long series of the Percoidea, the fishes built on the type of the perch or bass. This is a group of fishes of diverse habits and forms, but on the whole representing better than any other the typical Acanthopterygian fish. The group is incapable of concise definition, or, in general, of any definition at all; still, most of its members are definitely related to each other and bear in one way or another a resemblance to the typical form, the perch, or more strictly to its marine relatives, the sea-bass, or Serranidæ. The following analysis gives most of the common characters of the group:
Body usually oblong, covered with scales, which are typically ctenoid, not smooth nor spinous, and of moderate size. Lateral line typically present and concurrent with the back. Head usually compressed laterally and with the cheeks and opercles scaly. Mouth various, usually terminal and with lateral cleft; the teeth various, but typically pointed, arranged in bands on the jaws, and in several families on the vomer and palatine bones also, as well as on the pharyngeals; gill-rakers usually sharp, stoutish, armed with teeth, but sometimes short or feeble; lower pharyngeals almost always separate, usually armed with cardiform teeth; third upper pharyngeal moderately enlarged, elongate, not articulated to the cranium, the fourth typically present; gills four, a slit behind the fourth; gill membranes free from the isthmus, and usually not connected with each other; pseudobranchiæ typically well developed. Branchiostegals few, usually six or seven. No bony stay connecting the suborbital chain to the preopercle. Opercular bones all well developed, normal in position; the preopercle typically serrate. No cranial spines. Dorsal fin variously developed, but always with some spines in front, these typically stiff and pungent; anal fin typically short, usually with three spines, sometimes with a larger number, rarely with none; caudal fin various, usually lunate; pectoral fins well developed, inserted high; ventral fins always present, thoracic, separate, almost always with one spine and five rays, the Aphredoderidæ having more, a few Serranidæ having fewer. Air-bladder usually present, without air-duct in adult; simple and generally adherent to the walls of the abdomen. Stomach cæcal, with pyloric appendages, the intestines short in most species, long in the herbivorous forms. Vertebral column well developed, none of the vertebræ especially modified, the number 10 + 14 = 24, except in certain extratropical and fresh-water forms, which retain primitive higher numbers. Shoulder-girdle normally developed, the post-temporal bifurcate attached to the skull, but not coossified with it; none of the epipleural bones attached to the center of the vertebræ; coracoids normal, the hypercoracoid always with a median foramen, the basal bones of the pectoral (actinosts or pterygials) normally developed, three or four in number, hour-glass-shaped, longer than broad; premaxillary forming the border of the mouth usually protractile; bones of the mandible distinct. Orbitosphenoid wanting.
The most archaic of the perch-like types are apparently some of those of the fresh waters. Among these the process of evolution has been less rapid. In some groups, as the Percidæ, the great variability of species is doubtless due to the recent origin, the characters not being well fixed.
=The Pirate-perches: Aphredoderidæ.=—Among the most remarkable of the living percoid fishes and probably the most primitive of all, showing affinities with the Salmopercæ, is the pirate-perch, Aphredoderus sayanus, a little fish of the lowland streams of the Mississippi Valley. The family of Aphredoderidæ agrees with the berycoid fishes in scales and structure of the fins, and Boulenger places it with the Berycidæ. Starks has shown, however, that it lacks the orbitosphenoid, and the general osteology is that of the perch-like fishes. The dorsal and anal have a few spines. The thoracic ventrals have one spine and eight rays. There is no adipose fin and probably no duct to the air-bladder. A singular trait is found in the position of the vent. In the adult this is in front of the ventral fins, at the throat. In the young it is behind the ventral fins as in ordinary fishes. With age it moves forward by the prolongation of the horizontal part of the intestine or rectum. The same peculiar position of the vent is found in the berycoid genus Paratrachichthys.
In the family Aphredoderidæ but one species is known, Aphredoderus sayanus, the pirate-perch. It reaches a length of five inches and lives in sluggish lowland streams with muddy bottom from New Jersey and Minnesota to Louisiana. It is dull green in color and feeds on insects and worms. It has no economic value, although extremely interesting in its anatomy and relationship.
Whether the Asineopidæ, fresh-water fishes of the American Eocene, and the Erismatopteridæ, of the same deposits (see page 235) are related to Aphredoderus or to Percopsis is still uncertain.
=The Pigmy Sunfishes: Elassomidæ.=—One of the most primitive groups is that of Elassomidæ, or pigmy sunfishes. These are very small fishes, less than two inches long, living in the swamps of the South, resembling the sunfishes, but with the number of dorsal spines reduced to from three to five. Elassoma zonatum occurs from southern Illinois to Louisiana. Elassoma evergladei abounds in the Everglades of Florida. In both the body is oblong and compressed, the color is dull green crossed by black bars or blotches.
=The Sunfishes: Centrarchidæ.=—The large family of Centrarchidæ, or sunfishes, is especially characteristic of the rivers of the eastern United States, where the various species are inordinately abundant. The body is relatively short and deep, and the axis passes through the middle so that the back has much the same outline as the belly. The pseudobranchiæ are imperfect, as in many fresh-water fishes, and the head is feebly armed, the bones being usually without spines or serratures. The colors are often brilliant, the sexes alike, and all are carnivorous, voracious, and gamy, being excellent as food. The origin of the group is probably Asiatic, the fresh-water serranoid of Japan, Bryttosus, resembling in many ways an American sunfish, and the genus Kuhlia of the Pacific showing many homologies with the black bass, Micropterus.
=Crappies and Rock Bass.=—Pomoxis annularis, the crappie, and Pomoxis sparoides, the calico-bass, are handsome fishes, valued by the angler. These are perhaps the most primitive of the family, and in these species the anal fin is larger than the dorsal. The flier, or round bass, Centrarchus macropterus, with eight anal spines, is abundant in swamps and lowland ponds of the Southern States. It is a pretty fish, attractive in the aquarium. Acantharchus pomotis is the mud-bass of the Delaware, and Archoplites interruptus, the "perch" of the Sacramento. The latter is a large and gamy fish, valued as food and interesting as being the only fresh-water fish of the nature of perch or bass native to the west of the Rocky Mountains. The numbers of this species, according to Mr. Will S. Green of Colusa, California, have been greatly reduced by the introduction of the catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) into the Sacramento. The perch eats the young catfish, and its stomach is torn by their sharp pectoral spines. Another species of this type is the warmouth (Chænobryttus gulosus) of the ponds of the South, and still more familiar rock-bass or redeye (Ambloplites rupestris) of the more northern lakes and rivers valued as a game-and food-fish. A very pretty aquarium fish is the black-banded sunfish, Mesogonistius chætodon, of the Delaware, as also the nine-spined sunfish, Enneacanthus gloriosus, of the coast streams southward. Apomotis cyanellus, the blue-green sunfish or little redeye, is very widely distributed from Ohio westward, living in every brook. The dissection of this species is given on page 26, Vol. I. To Lepomis belong numerous species having the opercle prolonged in a long flap which is always black in color, often with a border of scarlet or blue. The yellowbelly of the South (Lepomis auritus), ear-like the showily colored long-eared sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) of the southwest, figured on page 2, Vol. I, the bluegill (Lepomis pallidus), abundant everywhere south and west of New York, are members of this genus. The genus Eupomotis differs in its larger pharyngeals, which are armed with blunt teeth. The common sunfish, or pumpkinseed, Eupomotis gibbosus, is the most familiar representative of the family, abounding everywhere from Minnesota to New England, then south to Carolina on the east slope of the Alleghanies, breeding everywhere in ponds and in the eddies of the clear brooks.
=The Black Bass.=—The black bass (Micropterus) belong to the same family as the sunfish, differing in the larger size, more elongate form, and more voracious habit. The two species are among the most important of American game-fishes, abounding in all clear waters east of the Alleghanies and resisting the evils of civilization far better than the trout.
The small-mouthed black bass, Micropterus dolomieu, is the most valuable of the species. Its mouth, although large, is relatively small, the cleft not extending beyond the eye. The green coloration is broken in the young by bronze cross-bands. The species frequents only running streams, preferring clear and cold waters, and it extends its range from Canada as far to the southward as such streams can be found. Dr. James A. Henshall, an accomplished angler, author of the "Book of the Black Bass," says: "The black bass is eminently an American fish; he has the faculty of asserting himself and of making himself completely at home wherever placed. He is plucky, game, brave, unyielding to the last when hooked. He has the arrowy rush and vigor of a trout, the untiring strength and bold leap of a salmon, while he has a system of fighting tactics peculiarly his own. I consider him inch for inch and pound for pound the gamest fish that swims."
In the same vein Charles Hallock writes: "No doubt the bass is the appointed successor of the trout; not through heritage, nor selection, nor by interloping, but by foreordination. Truly, it is sad to contemplate, in the not distant future, the extinction of a beautiful race of creatures, whose attributes have been sung by all the poets; but we regard the inevitable with the same calm philosophy with which the astronomer watches the burning out of a world, knowing that it will be succeeded by a new creation. As we mark the soft varitinted flush of the trout disappear in the eventide, behold the sparkle of the coming bass, as he leaps in the morning of his glory! We hardly know which to admire the most—the velvet livery and the charming graces of the departing courtier, or the flash of the armor-plates of the advancing warrior. The bass will unquestionably prove himself a worthy substitute for his predecessor and a candidate for a full legacy of honors.
"No doubt, when every one of the older states shall become as densely settled as Great Britain itself, and all the rural aspects of the crowded domain resemble the suburban surroundings of our Boston; when every feature of the pastoral landscape shall wear the finished appearance of European lands, and every verdant field be closely cropped by lawn-mowers and guarded by hedges, and every purling stream which meanders through it has its water-bailiff, we shall still have speckled trout from which the radiant spots have faded, and tasteless fish, to catch at a dollar a pound (as we already have on Long Island), and all the appurtenances and appointments of a genuine English trouting privilege and a genuine English 'outing.'
"In those future days, not long hence to come, some venerable piscator, in whose memory still lingers the joy of fishing, the brawling stream which tumbled over the rocks in the tangled wildwood, and moistened the arbutus and the bunchberries which garnished its banks, will totter forth to the velvet edge of some peacefully flowing stream, and having seated himself on a convenient point in a revolving easy-chair, placed there by his careful attendant, cast right and left for the semblance of sport long dead.
"Hosts of liver-fed fish rush to the signal for their early morning meal, and from the center of the boil which follows the fall of the handfuls thrown in my piscator of the ancient days will hook a two-pound trout, and play him hither and yon, from surface to bottom, without disturbing the pampered gourmands which are gorging themselves upon the disgusting viands; and when he has leisurely brought him to land at last, and the gillie has scooped him with his landing-net, he will feel in his capacious pocket for his last trade dollar, and giving his friend the tip, shuffle back to his house, and lay aside his rod forever."
The black bass is now introduced into the streams of Europe and California. There is little danger that it will work injury to the trout, for the black bass prefers limestone streams, and the trout rarely does well in waters which do not flow over granite rock or else glacial gravel.
The large-mouth black bass (Micropterus salmoides) is very much like the other in appearance. The mouth is larger, in the adult cleft beyond the eye; the scales are larger, and in the young there is always a broad black stripe along the sides and no cross-bands. The two are found in the same region, but almost never in the same waters, for the large-mouth bass is a fish of the lakes, ponds, and bayous, always avoiding the swift currents. The young like to hide among weeds or beneath lily-pads. From its preference for sluggish waters, its range extends farther to the southward, as far as the Mexican State of Tamaulipas.
Plioplarchus is a genus of fossil sunfishes from the Eocene of South Dakota and Oregon. Plioplarchus sexspinosus, septemspinosus, and whitei are imperfectly known species.
=The Saleles: Kuhliidæ.=—Much like the sunfishes in anatomy, though more like the white perch in appearance and habit, are the members of the little family of Kuhliidæ. These are active silvery perches of the tropical seas, ponds, and river-mouths, especially abundant in Polynesia. Kuhlia malo is the aholehole of the Hawaiians, a silvery fish living in great numbers in brackish waters. Kuhlia rupestris, the salele of the Samoan rivers, is a large swift fish of the rock pools, in form, color, and habits remarkably like the black bass. It is silvery bronze in hue, everywhere mottled with olive-green. The sesele, Kuhlia marginata, lives with it in the rivers, but is less abundant. The saboti, Kuhlia tæniura, a large silvery fish with cross-bands on the caudal fin, lives about lava-rooks in Polynesia from the Galapagos to Samoa and the East Indies, never entering rivers. Still other species are found in the rock pools and streams of Japan and southward.
The skeleton in Kuhlia is essentially like that of the black bass, and Dr. Boulenger places the genus with the Centrarchidæ.
=The True Perches: Percidæ.=—The great family of Percidæ includes fresh-water fishes of the northern hemisphere, elongate in body, with the vertebræ in increased number and with only two spines in the anal fin. About ninety species are recorded, the vast majority being American. The dwarf perches, called darters (Etheostominæ), are especially characteristic of the clear streams to the eastward of the plains of the Missouri. These constitute one of the greatest attractions of our American river fauna. They differ from the perch and its European allies in their small size, bright colors, and large fins, and more technically in the rudimentary condition of the pseudobranchiæ and the air-bladder, both of which organs are almost inappreciable. The preopercle is unarmed, and the number of the branchiostegals is six. The anal papilla is likewise developed, as in the Gobiidæ, to which group the darters bear a considerable superficial resemblance, which, however, indicates no real affinity.
=Relations of Darters to Perches.=—The colors of the Etheostominæ, or darters, are usually very brilliant, species of Etheostoma especially being among the most brilliantly colored fishes known; the sexual differences are often great, the females being, as a rule, dull in color and more speckled or barred than the males. Most of them prefer clear running water, where they lie on the bottom concealed under stones, darting, when frightened or hungry, with great velocity for a short distance, by a powerful movement of the fan-shaped pectorals, then stopping as suddenly. They rarely use the caudal fin in swimming, and they are seldom seen floating or moving freely in the water like most fishes. When at rest they support themselves on their expanded ventrals and anal fin. All of them can turn the head from side to side, and they frequently lie with the head in a curved position or partly on one side of the body. The species of Ammocrypta, and perhaps some of the others, prefer a sandy bottom, where, by a sudden plunge, the fish buries itself in the sand, and remains quiescent for hours at a time with only its eyes and snout visible. The others lurk in stony places, under rocks and weeds. Although more than usually tenacious of vitality, the darters, from their bottom life, are the first to be disturbed by impurities in the water. All the darters are carnivorous, feeding chiefly on the larvæ of Diptera, and in their way voracious. All are of small size; the largest (Percina rex) reaches a length of ten inches, while the smallest (Microperca punctulata) is, one of the smallest spiny-rayed fishes known, barely attaining the length of an inch and a half. In Europe no Etheostominæ are found, their place being filled by the genera Zingel and Aspro, which bear a strong resemblance to the American forms, a resemblance which may be a clue to the origin of the latter.
=The Perches.=—The European perch, Perca fluviatilis, is placed by Cuvier at the head of the fish series, as representing in a high degree the traits of a fish without sign of incomplete development on the one hand or of degradation on the other. Doubtless the increased number of the vertebræ is the chief character which would lead us to call in question this time-honored arrangement. Because, however, the perch has a relatively degenerate vertebral column, we have used an allied form, the striped bass, as a fairer type of the perfected spiny-rayed fish. Certainly the bass represents this type better than the perch.
But though we may regard the perch as nearest the typically perfect fish, it is far from being one of the most highly specialized, for, as we have seen in several cases, a high degree of specialization of a particular structure is a first step toward its degradation.
The perch of Europe is a common game-fish of the rivers. The yellow perch of America (Perca flavescens) is very much like it, a little brighter in color, olive and golden with dusky cross-bands. It frequents quiet streams and ponds from Minnesota eastward, then southward east of the Alleghanies. "As a still-pond fish," says Dr. Charles Conrad Abbott, "if there is a fair supply of spring-water, they thrive excellently; but the largest specimens come either from the river or from the inflowing creeks. Deep water of the temperature of ordinary spring-water, with some current and the bed of the stream at least partly covered with vegetation, best suits this fish." The perch is a food-fish of moderate quality. In spite of its beauty and gaminess, it is little sought for by our anglers, and is much less valued with us than is the European perch in England. But Dr. Goode ventures to prophesy that "before many years the perch will have as many followers as the black bass among those who fish for pleasure" in the region it inhabits. "A fish for the people it is, we will grant, and it is the anglers from among the people who have neither time nor patience for long trips nor complicated tackle who will prove its steadfast friends." The boy values it, according to Thoreau. When he returns from the mill-pond, he numbers his perch as "real fishes." "So many unquestionable fish he counts, and so many chubs, which he counts, then throws away."
In the perch, the oral valves, characteristic of all bony fishes, are well developed. These structures recently investigated by Evelyn G. Mitchill, form a fold of connective tissue just behind the premaxillary and before the vomer. They are used in respiration, preventing the forward flow of water as the mouth closes.
Several perch-like fishes are recorded as fossils from the Miocene.
Allied to the perch, but long, slender, big-mouthed, and voracious, is the group of pike perches, found in eastern America and Europe. The wall-eye, or glass-eye (Stizostedion vitreum), is the largest of this tribe, reaching a weight of ten to twenty pounds. It is found throughout the region east of the Missouri in the large streams and ponds, an excellent food-fish, with white, flaky flesh and in the north a game fish of high rank. The common names refer to the large glassy eye, concerning which Dr. Goode quotes from some "ardent admirer" these words: "Look at this beautiful fish, as symmetrical in form as the salmon. Not a fault in his make-up, not a scale disturbed, every fin perfect, tail clean-cut, and his great, big wall-eyes stand out with that life-like glare so characteristic of the fish."
Similar to the wall-eye, but much smaller and more translucent in color, is the sauger, or sand-pike, of the Great Lakes and Northern rivers, Stizostedion canadense. This fish rarely exceeds fifteen inches in length, and as a food-fish it is of correspondingly less importance.
The pike-perch, or zander, of central Europe, Centropomus (or Sandrus) lucioperca, is an excellent game-fish, similar to the sauger, but larger, characterized technically by having the ventral fins closer together. Another species, Centropomus volgensis, in Russia, looks more like a perch than the other species do. Sandroserrus, a fossil pike-perch, occurs in the Pliocene. Another European fish related to the perch is the river ruff, or pope, Acerina cernua, which is a small fish with the form of a perch and with conspicuous mucous cavities in the skull. It is common throughout the north of Europe and especially abundant at the confluence of rivers. Gymnocephalus schrætzer of the Danube has the head still more cavernous. Percarina demidoffi of southern Russia is another dainty little fish of the general type of the perch. A fossil genus of this type called Smerdis is numerously represented in the Miocene and later rocks. The aspron, Aspro asper, is a species like a darter found lying on the bottoms of swift rivers, especially the Rhone. The body is elongate, with the paired fins highly developed. Zingel zingel is found in the Danube, as is also a third species called Aspro streber. In form and coloration these species greatly resemble the American darters, and the genus Zingel is, perhaps, the ancestor of the entire group. Zingel differs from Percina mainly in having seven instead of six branchiostegals and the pseudobranchiæ better developed. The differences in these and other regards which distinguish the darters are features of degradation, and they are also no doubt of relatively recent acquisition. To this fact we may ascribe the difficulty in finding good generic characters within the group. Sharply defined genera occur where the intervening types are lost. The darter is one of the very latest products in the evolution of fishes.
=The Darters: Etheostominæ.=—Of the darters, or etheostomine perches, over fifty species are known, all confined to the streams of the region bounded by Quebec, Assiniboia, Colorado, and Nuevo Leon. All are small fishes and some of them minute, and some are the most brilliantly colored of all fresh-water fishes of any region, the most ornate belonging to the large genus called Etheostoma. The largest species, the most primitive because most like the perch, belong to the genus Percina.
First among the darters because largest in size, most perch-like in structure, and least degenerate, we place the king darter, Percina rex of the Roanoke River in Virginia. This species reaches a length of six inches, is handsomely colored, and looks like a young wall-eye.
The log-perch, Percina caprodes, is near to this, but a little smaller, with the body surrounded by black rings alternately large and small. In this widely distributed species, large enough to take the hook, the air-bladder is present although small. In the smaller species it vanishes by degrees, and in proportion as in their habits they cling to the bottom of the stream. The air-bladder is least developed in those species which cling closest to the bottom of the stream.
The genus Hadropterus includes many handsome species, most of them with a black lateral band widened at intervals. The black-sided darter, Hadropterus aspro, is the best-known species and one of the most elegant of all fishes, abounding in the clear gravelly streams of the Ohio basin and northwestward.
Hadropterus evides of the Ohio region is still more brilliant, with alternate bands of dark blue-green and orange-red, most exquisite in their arrangement. In the South, Hadropterus nigrofasciatus, the crawl-a-bottom of the Georgia rivers, is a heavily built darter, which Vaillant has considered the ancestral species of the group. Still more swift in movement and bright in color are the species of Hypohomus, which flash their showy hues in the sparkling brooks of the Ozark and the Great Smoky Mountains. Hypohomus aurantiacus is the best-known species.
Diplesion blennioides, the green-sided darter, is the type of numerous species with short heads, large fins, and coloration of speckled green and golden. It abounds in the streams of the Ohio Valley.
The tessellated darters, Boleosoma, are the most plainly colored of the group and among the smallest; yet in the delicacy, wariness, and quaintness of motion they are among the most interesting, especially in the aquarium. Boleosoma nigrum, the Johnny darter in the West, and Boleosoma olmstedi in the East are among the commonest species, found half hidden in the weeds of small brooks, and showing no bright colors, although the male in the spring has the head, and often the whole body, jet black.
Crystallaria asprella, a large species almost transparent, is occasionally taken in swift currents along the limestone banks of the Mississippi. Still more transparent is the small sand-darter, Ammocrypta pellucida, which lives in the clearest of waters, concealing itself by plunging into the sand. Its scales are scantily developed, as befits a fish that chooses this method of protection, and in the related Ammocrypta beani of the streams of the Louisiana pine-woods, the body is almost naked, as also in Ioa vitrea, the glassy darter of the pine-woods of North Carolina.
In the other darters the body is more compressed, the movements less active, the coloration even more brilliant in the males, which are far more showy than their dull olivaceous mates.
To Etheostoma nearly half of the species belong, and they form indeed a royal series of little fishes. Only a few can be noticed here, but all of them are described in detail and many are figured by Jordan and Evermann ("Fishes of North and Middle America," Vol. I).
Most beautiful of all fresh-water fishes is the blue-breasted darter, Etheostoma camurum, red-blue and olive, with red spots, like a trout. This species lives in clear streams of the Ohio valley, a region perhaps to be regarded as the center of abundance of these fishes.
Very similar is the trout-spotted darter, Etheostoma maculatum, dusky and red, with round crimson spots. Etheostoma rufilineatum of the French Broad is one of the most gaudy of fishes. Etheostoma australe of Chihuahua ranges farthest south of all the darters, and Etheostoma boreale of Quebec perhaps farthest north, though Etheostoma iowæ, found from Iowa to the Saskatchewan, may dispute this honor. Etheostoma cæruleum, the rainbow darter or soldier-fish, with alternate oblique bands of blue and scarlet, is doubtless the most familiar of the brilliantly colored species, as it is the most abundant throughout the Ohio valley.
Etheostoma flabellare, the fan-tailed darter, discovered by Rafinesque in Kentucky in 1817, was the first species of the series made known to science. It has no bright colors, but its movements in water are more active than any of the others, and it is the most hardy in the aquarium.
Psychromaster tuscumbia abounds in the great limestone springs of northern Alabama, while Copelandellus quiescens swarms in the black-water brooks which flow into the Dismal Swamp and thence southward to the Suwanee. It is a little fish not very active, its range going farther into the southern lowlands than any other. Finally, Microperca punctulata, the least darter, is the smallest of all, with fewest spines and dullest colors, most specialized in the sense of being least primitive, but at the same time the most degraded of all the darters.
No fossil forms nearly allied to the darters are on record. The nearest is perhaps Mioplosus labracoides from the Eocene at Green River, Wyoming. This elongate fish, a foot long, has the dorsal rays IX-1, 13, and the anal rays II, 13, its scales finely serrated, and the preopercle coarsely serrated on the lower limb only. This species, with its numerous congeners from the Rocky Mountain Eocene, is nearer the true perch than the darters. Several species related to Perca are also recorded from the Eocene of England and Germany. A species called Lucioperca skorpili, allied to Centropomus, is described from the Oligocene of Bulgaria, besides several other forms imperfectly preserved, of still more doubtful affinities.
XIX. THE BASS AND THEIR RELATIVES
=THE Cardinal-fishes. Apogonidæ.=—The Apogonidæ or cardinal-fishes are perch-like fishes, mostly of small size, with two distinct short dorsal fins. They are found in the warm seas, and many of them enter rivers, some even inhabiting hot springs. Many of the shore species are bright red in color, usually with black stripes, bands, or spots. Still others, however, are olive or silvery, and a few in deeper water are violet-black.
The species of Apogon are especially numerous, and in regions where they are abundant, as in Japan, they are much valued as food. Apogon imberbis, the "king of the mullet," is a common red species of southern Europe. Apogon maculatus is found in the West Indies. Apogon retrosella is the pretty "cardenal" of the west coast of Mexico. Apogon lineatus, semilineatus and other species abound in Japan, and many species occur about the islands of Polynesia. Epigonus telescopium is a deep-sea fish of the Mediterranean and Telescopias and Synagrops are genera of the depths of the Pacific. Paramia with strong canines is allied to Apogon, and similar in color and habit.
Allied to Apogon are several small groups often taken as distinct families. The species of Ambassis (Ambassidæ) are little fishes of the rivers and bays of India and Polynesia, resembling small silvery perch or bass. All these have three anal spines instead of two as in Apogon. Some of these enter rivers and several are recorded from hot springs. Scombrops boops, the mutsu of Japan, is a valued food-fish found in rather deep water. It is remarkable for its very strong teeth, although its flesh is feeble and easily torn. A still larger species in Cuba, Scombrops oculata, known as Escolar chino, resembles a barracuda. These fishes with fragile bodies and very strong teeth are placed by Gill in a separate family (Scombropidæ). Acropoma japonicum is a neat little fish of the Japanese coast, with the vent placed farther forward than in Apogon. It is the type of the Acropomidæ, a small family of the Pacific. Enoplosus armatus is an Australian fish with high back and fins, with a rather stately appearance, type of the Enoplosidæ. In his last catalogue of families of fishes Dr. Gill recognizes Scombropidæ and Acropomidæ as distinct families, but their relationships with Apogon are certainly very close. Many genera allied to Apogon and Ambassis occur in Australian rivers. Several fossils referred to Apogon (Apogon spinosus, etc.) occur in the Eocene of Italy and Germany.
=The Anomalopidæ.=—The family of Anomalopidæ is a small group of deep-sea fishes of uncertain relationship, but perhaps remotely related to Apogon. Anomalops palpebrata is found in Polynesia and has beneath the eye a large luminous organ unlike anything seen elsewhere among fishes.
=The Asineopidæ.=—Another family of doubtful relationship is that of Asineopidæ, elsewhere noticed. It is composed of extinct fresh-water fishes found in the Green River shales. In Asineops squamifrons the opercles are unarmed, the teeth villiform, and the dorsal fin undivided, composed of eight or nine spines and twelve to fourteen soft rays. The anal spines, as in Apogon, are two only, and the scales are cycloid.
=The Robalos:[13] Oxylabracidæ.=—The family of Robalos (Oxylabracidæ or Centropomidæ) is closely related to the Serranidæ, differing among other things in having the conspicuous lateral line extended on the caudal fin. These are silvery fishes with elongate bodies, large scales, a pike-like appearance, the first dorsal composed of strong spines and the second spine of the anal especially large. They are found in tropical America only, where they are highly valued as food, the flesh being like that of the striped bass, white, flaky, and of fine flavor. The common robalo, or snook, Oxylabrax (or Centropomus) undecimalis, reaches a weight of fifteen to twenty pounds. It ranges north as far as Texas. In this species the lateral line is black. The smaller species, of which several are described, are known as Robalito or Constantino.
Footnote 13:
The European zander is the type of Lacépède's genus Centropomus. The name Centropomus has been wrongly transferred to the robalo by most authors.
=The Sea-bass: Serranidæ.=—The central family of the percoid fishes is that of the Serranidæ, or sea-bass. Of these about 400 species are recorded, carnivorous fishes found in all warm seas, a few ascending the fresh waters. In general, the species are characterized by the presence of twenty-four vertebræ and three anal spines, never more than three. The fresh-water species are all more or less archaic and show traits suggesting the Oxylabracidæ, Percidæ, or Centrarchidæ, all of which are doubtless derived from ancestors of Serranidæ. Among the connecting forms are the perch-like genera Percichthys and Percilia of the rivers of Chile. These species look much like perch, but have three anal spines, the number of vertebræ being thirty-five. Percichthys trucha is the common trucha, or trout, of Chilean waters.
Lateolabrax japonicus, the susuki, or bass, of Japan, is one of the most valued food-fishes of the Orient, similar in quality to the robalo, which it much resembles. This genus and the East Indian Centrogenys waigiensis approach Oxylabrax in appearance and structure. Niphon spinosus, the ara of Japan, is a very large sea-bass, also of this type. Close to these bass, marine and fresh water, are the Chinese genus Siniperca and the Korean genus Coreoperca, several species of which abound in Oriental rivers. In southern Japan is the rare Bryttosus kawamebari, a bass in structure, but very closely resembling the American sunfish, even to the presence of the bright-edged black ear-spot. There is reason to believe that from some such form the Centrarchidæ were derived.
Other bass-like fishes occur in Egypt (Lates), Australia (Percalates, etc.), and southern Africa. Oligorus macquariensis is the great cod of the Australian rivers and Ctenolates ambiguus is the yellow belly, while Percalates colonorum is everywhere the "perch" in Australian rivers. The most important member of these transitional types between perch and sea-bass is the striped bass, or rockfish (Roccus lineatus), of the Atlantic coast of the United States. This large fish, reaching in extreme cases a weight of 112 pounds, lives in shallow waters in the sea and ascends the rivers in spring to spawn. It is olivaceous in color, the sides golden silvery, with narrow black stripes. About 1880 it was introduced by the United States Fish Commission into the Sacramento, where it is now very abundant and a fish of large commercial importance. To the angler the striped bass is always "a gallant fish and a bold biter," and Genio Scott places it first among the game-fishes of America.
The white bass (Roccus chrysops) is very similar to it, but shorter and more compressed, reaching a smaller size. This fish is abundant in the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi as far south as Arkansas.
The yellow bass (Morone interrupta), a coarser and more brassy fish, replaces it farther south. It is seldom seen above Cincinnati and St. Louis. The white perch (Morone americana) is a little fish of the Atlantic seaboard, entering the sea, but running up all the rivers, remaining contentedly landlocked in ponds. It is one of the most characteristic fishes of the coast from Nova Scotia to Virginia. It is a good pan fish, takes the hook vigorously, and in a modest way deserves the good-will of the angler who cannot stray far into the mountains. Very close to these American bass is the bass, bars, or robalo, of southern Europe, Dicentrarchus labrax, a large olive-colored fish, excellent as food, living in the sea about the mouths of rivers.
=The Jewfishes.=—In the warm seas are certain bass of immense size, reaching a length of six feet or more, and being robust in form, a weight of 500 or 600 pounds. These are dusky green in color, thick-headed, rough-scaled, with low fins, voracious disposition, and sluggish movements. In almost all parts of the world these great bass are called jewfish, but no reason for this name has ever been suggested. In habit and value the species are much alike, and the jewfish of California, Stereolepis gigas, the prize of the Santa Catalina anglers, may be taken as the type of them all. Closely related to this is the Japanese ishinagi, Megaperca ischinagi, the jewfish, or stone-bass, of Japan. Another Japanese jewfish is the Abura bodzu, or "fat priest," Ebisus sagamius. In the West Indies, as also on the west coast of Mexico, the jewfish, or guasa, is Promicrops itaiara. The black grouper, Garrupa nigrita, is the jewfish of Florida. The European jewfish, more often called wreckfish, or stone-bass, is Polyprion americanus, and the equally large Polyprion oxygeneios is found in Australia, as is also another jewfish, Glaucosoma hebraicum, the last belonging to the Lutianidæ. Largest of all these jewfishes is Promicrops lanceolata of the South Pacific. This huge bass, according to Dr. Boulenger, sometimes reaches a length of twelve feet.
Related to the jewfishes are numerous smaller fishes. One of these, the Spanish-flag of Cuba, Gonioplectrus hispanus, is rose-colored, with golden bands like the flag of Spain itself. Other species referred to Acanthistius and Plectropoma have, like this, hooked spines on the lower border of the preopercle.
=The Groupers.=—In all warm seas abound species of Epinephelus and related genera, known as sea-bass, groupers, or merous. They are mostly large voracious fishes with small scales, pale flesh of fair quality, and from their abundance they are of large commercial importance. To English-speaking people these fishes are usually known as grouper, a corruption of the Portuguese name garrupa. In the West Indies and about Panama there are very many species, and still others abound in the Mediterranean, in southern Japan, and throughout Polynesia and the West Indies. They have very much in common, but differ in size and color, some being bright red, some gaudily spotted with red or blue, but most of them are merely mottled green or brown. In many cases individuals living near shore are olivaceous, and those of the same species in the depths are bright crimson or scarlet. We name below a few of the most prominent species. Even a bare list of all of them would take many pages. Cephalopholis cruentatus, the red hind of the Florida Keys, is one of the smallest and brightest of all of them. Cephalopholis fulvus, the blue-spotted guativere of the Cubans, is called negro-fish, butter-fish, yellow-fish, or redfish, according to its color, which varies with the depth. It is red, yellow, or olive, with many round blue spots. Epinephelus adscenscionis, the rock-hind, is spotted everywhere with orange. Epinephelus guaza is the merou, or giant-bass, of Europe, a large food-fish of value, rather dull in color. Epinephelus striatus is the Nassau grouper, or Cherna criolla, common in the West Indies. Epinephelus maculosus is the cabrilla of Cuba. Epinephelus drummond-hayi, the speckled hind, umber brown, spotted with lavender, is one of the handsomest of all the groupers. Epinephelus morio, the red grouper, is the commonest of all these fishes in the American markets. In Asia the species are equally numerous, Epinephelus quernus of Hawaii and the red Epinephelus fasciatus of Japan and southward being food-fishes of importance. Epinephelus merra, Epinephelus gilberti, and Epinephelus tauvina are among the more common species of Polynesia. Epinephelus corallicola, a species profusely spotted, abounds in the crevices of coral reefs, while Cepholopholis argus and C. leopardus are showy fishes of the deeper channels. Mycteroperca venenosa, the yellow-finned grouper, is a large and handsome fish of the coast of Cuba, the flesh sometimes poisonous; when red in deep water it is known as the bonaci cardenal. Mycteroperca bonaci; the bonaci arará sells in our markets as black grouper. Mycteroperca microlepis is commonest along our South Atlantic coast, not reaching the West Indies, and Mycteroperca rubra, which is never red, enters the Mediterranean. Mycteroperca falcata is known in the markets as scamp, and Mycteroperca venadorum is a giant species from the Venados Islands, near Mazatlan. Diploprion bifasciatus is a handsome grouper-like fish with two black cross-bands, found in Japan and India. Variola louti, red, with crimson spots and a forked caudal fin, is one of the most showy fishes of the equatorial Pacific.
The small fishes called Vaca in Cuba belong to the genus Hypoplectrus. Their extraordinary and unexplained variations in color have been noticed on page 235, Vol. I. The common species—blue, orange, green, plain, striated, checkered, or striped—bears the name of Hypoplectrus unicolor. (Fig. 264).
=The Serranos.=—In all the species known as jewfish and grouper, as also in the Oxylabracidæ and most Centrarchidæ, the maxillary bone is divided by a lengthwise suture which sets off a distinct supplemental maxillary. This bone is wanting in the remaining species of Serranidæ, as it is also in those forms already noticed which are familiarly known as bass. The species without the supplemental maxillary are in general smaller in size, the canines are on the sides of the jaws instead of in front, and there are none of the hinged depressible teeth which are conspicuous in the groupers. The species are abundant in the Atlantic, but scarcely any are found in Polynesia, and few in Japan or India.
Serranus cabrilla is the Cabrilla of the Mediterranean, a well-known and excellent food-fish, the original type of the family of Serranidæ. Serranellus scriba is the serran, a very pretty shore-fish of southern Europe, longer known than any other of the tribe. On the coast of southern California are also species called Cabrillas, fine, large, food-fish, bass-like in form, Paralabrax clathratus, and other less common species. The Cabrillas and their relatives are almost all American, a few straying across to Europe. One of the most important in the number is the black sea-bass, or black will, of our Atlantic coast, Centropristes striatus. This is a common food-and game-fish, dusky in color, gamy, and of fine flesh. The squirrel-fishes (Diplectrum) and the many serranos (Prionodes) of the tropics, small bright-colored fishes of the rocks and reefs, must be passed with a word, as also the small Paracentropristis of the Mediterranean and the fine red creole-fish of the West Indies, Paranthias furcifer. In one species, Anyperodon leucogrammicus of Polynesia, there are no teeth on the palatines.
The barber-fish (Anthias anthias) of southern Europe, bright red and with the lateral line running very high, is the type of a numerous group found at the lowest fishing level in all warm seas. All the species of this group are bright red, very handsome, and excellent as food. Hemianthias vivanus, known only from the spewings of the red snapper (Lutianus aya) at Pensacola, is one of the most brilliant species, red, with golden streaks. The genus Plesiops consists of small fishes almost black in color, with blue spots and other markings, abounding about the coral reefs. In this genus the lateral line is interrupted and there is some indication of affinity with the Opisthognathidæ.
In the soapfishes (Rypticus) the supplemental maxillary appears again, but in these forms the dorsal fin is reduced to two or three spines and there are none in the anal. Rypticus saponaceus, so called from the smooth or soapy scales, is the best known of the numerous species, which all belong to tropical America. Grammistes, with eight dorsal spines, is a related form in Polynesia, bright yellow, with numerous black stripes. Numerous species referred to the Serranidæ occur in the Eocene and Miocene rocks. Some are related to Epinephelus, others to Roccus and Lates. In the Tertiary lignite of Brazil is a species of Percichthys, Percichthys antiquus, with Properca beaumonti, which seem to be a primitive form of the bass, allied to Dicentrarchus. Prolates heberti of the Cretaceous, one of the earliest of the series, has the caudal rounded and is apparently allied to Lates, as is also the heavily armed Acanus regleysianus of the Oligocene. Smerdis minutus, a small fish from the Oligocene, is also related to Lates, which genus with Roccus and Dicentrarchus must represent the most primitive of existing members of this family. Of both Smerdis and Dicentrarchus (Labrax) numerous species are recorded, mostly from the Miocene of Europe.
=The Flashers: Lobotidæ.=—The small family of Lobotidæ, flashers, or triple-tails, closely resembles the Serranidæ, but there are no teeth on vomer or palatines. The three species are robust fishes, of a large size, of a dark-green color, the front part of the head very short. They reach a length of about three feet and are good food-fishes. Lobotes surinamensis comes northward from the West Indies as far as Cape Cod. Lobotes pacificus is found about Panama. Lobotes erate, common in India, was taken by the writer at Misaki, Japan.
=The Bigeyes: Priacanthidæ.=—The Catalufas or bigeyes (Priacanthidæ) are handsome fishes of the tropics, with short, flattened bodies, rough scales, large eyes, and bright-red coloration. The mouth is very oblique, and the anal fin about as large as the dorsal. The commonest species is Priacanthus cruentatus, widely diffused through the Pacific and also in the West Indies. This is the noted Aweoweo of the Hawaiians, which used to come into the bays in myriads at the period of death of royalty. It is still abundant, even after Hawaiian royalty has passed away.
Pseudopriacanthus altus is a short, very deep-bodied, and very rough fish, scarlet in color, occasionally taken along our coast, driven northward by the Gulf Stream. The young fishes are quite unlike the adult in appearance. Numerous other species of Priacanthus occur in the Indies and Polynesia.
=The Pentacerotidæ.=—Another family with strong spines and rough scales is the group of Pentacerotidæ. Histiopterus typus, the Matodai, is found in Japan, and is remarkable for its very deep body and very high spines. Equally remarkable is the Tengudai, Histiopterus acutirostris, also Japanese. Anoplus banjos is a third Japanese species, more common than the others, and largely taken in the Inland Sea. All these are eccentric variations from the perch-like type.
=The Snappers: Lutianidæ.=—Scarcely less numerous and varied than the sea-bass is the great family of Lutianidæ, known in America as snappers or pargos. In these fishes the maxillary slips along its edge into a sheath formed by the broad preorbital. In the Serranidæ there is no such sheath. In the Lutianidæ there is no supplemental maxillary, teeth are present on the vomer and palatines, and in the jaws there are distinct canines. These fishes of the warm seas are all carnivorous, voracious, gamy, excellent as food though seldom of fine grain, the flesh being white and not flaky. About 250 species are known, and in all warm seas they are abundant.
To the great genus Lutianus most of the species belong. These are the snappers of our markets and the pargos of the Spanish-speaking fishermen. The shore species are green in color, mostly banded, spotted, or streaked. In deeper water bright-red species are found. One of these, Lutianus aya, the red snapper or pargo guachinango of the Gulf of Mexico, is, economically speaking, the most important of all these fishes in the United States. It is a large, rather coarse fish, bright red in color, and it is taken on long lines on rocky reefs chiefly about Pensacola and Tampa in Florida, although similar fisheries exist on the shores of Yucatan and Brazil.
A related species is the Lutianus analis, the mutton snapper or pargo criollo of the West Indies. This is one of the staple fishes of the Havana market, always in demand for banquets and festivals, because its flesh is never unwholesome. The mangrove snapper, or gray-snapper, Lutianus griseus, called in Cuba, Caballerote, is the commonest species on our coasts. The common name arises from the fact that the young hide in the mangrove bushes of Florida and Cuba, whence they sally out in pursuit of sardines and other small fishes. It is a very wary fish, to be sought with care, hence the name "lawyer," sometimes heard in Florida. The cubero (Lutianus cyanopterus) is a very large snapper, often rejected as unwholesome, being said to cause the disease known as ciguatera. Certain snappers in Polynesia have a similar reputation. The large red mumea, Lutianus bohar, is regarded as always poisonous in Samoa—the most dangerous fish of the islands. L. leioglossus is also held under suspicion on Tutuila, though other fishes of this type are regarded as always safe. Other common snappers of Florida and Cuba are the dog snapper or jocu (Lutianus jocu), the schoolmaster or cají (Lutianus apodus), the black-fin snapper or sese de lo alto (Lutianus buccanella), the silk snapper or pargo de lo alto (Lutianus vivanus), the abundant lane snapper or biajaiba (Lutianus synagris), and the mahogany snapper or ojanco (Lutianus mahogani). Numerous other species occur on both coasts of tropical America, and a vastly larger assemblage is found in the East Indies, some of them ranging northward to Japan.
Hoplopagrus guntheri is a large snapper of the west coast of Mexico, having very large molar teeth in its jaws besides slit-like nostrils and other notable peculiarities. From the standpoint of structure this species, with its eccentric characters—is especially interesting. The yellow-tail snapper or rabirubia (Ocyurus chrysurus) is a handsome and common fish of the West Indies, with long, deeply forked tail, which makes it a swifter fish than the others. Another red species is the diamond snapper or cagon de lo alto, Rhomboplites aurorubens. All these true snappers have the soft fins more or less scaly. In certain species that swim more freely in deep waters, these fins are naked. Among them is the Arnillo, Apsilus dentatus, a pretty brown fish of the West Indies, and its analogue in Hawaii, Apsilus brighami, red, with golden cross-bands. Aprion virescens, the Uku of Hawaii, is a large fish of a greenish color and elongate body, widely diffused throughout Polynesia and one of the best of food-fishes. A related species is the red voraz (Aprion macrophthalmus) of the West Indies.
Most beautiful of all the group are the species of Etelis, with the dorsal fin deeply divided and the head flattened above. These live in rather deep water about rocky reefs and are fiery red in color. Best known is the Cuban species, Etelis oculatus, the cachucho of the markets. Equally abundant and equally beautiful is Etelis carbunculus of Polynesia, Etelis evurus of Hawaii, and other species of the Pacific islands.
Verilus sordidus, the black escolar of Cuba, has the form of Etelis, but the flesh is very soft and the color violet-black, indicating its life in very deep water. Numerous small silvery snappers living near the shore along the coast of western Mexico belong to the genera called Xenichthys, Xenistius, and Xenocys. Xenistius californiensis is the commonest of these species, Xenocys jessiæ, the largest in size, with black lines like a striped bass. To the genus Dentex belongs a large snapper-like fish of the Mediterranean, Dentex dentex. Very many related species occur in the old world, the prettily colored Nemipterus virgatus, the Itoyori of Japan being one of the best known. Another interesting fish is Aphareus furcatus, a handsome, swift fish of the open seas occasionally taken in Japan and the East Indies. Glaucosoma burgeri is a large snapper of Japan, and a related species, Glaucosoma hebraicum, is one of the "jewfishes" of Australia. Numerous fossil forms referred to Dentex occur in the Eocene of Monte Bolca, as also a fish called Ctenodentex lackeniensis from the Eocene of Belgium.
=The Grunts: Hæmulidæ.=—The large family of Hæmulidæ, known in America as grunters or roncos, is represented with the snappers in all tropical seas. The common names (Spanish, roncar, to grunt or snore) refer to the noise made either with their large pharyngeal teeth or with the complex air-bladder. These fishes differ from the Lutianidæ mainly in the feebler detention, there being no canines and no teeth on the vomer. Most of the American species belong to the genus Hæmulon or red-mouth grunts, so called from the dash of scarlet at the corner of the mouth. Hæmulon plumieri, the common grunt, or ronco arará, is the most abundant species, known by the narrow blue stripes across the head. In the yellow grunt, ronco amarillo (Hæmulon sciurus), these stripes cross the whole body. In the margate-fish, or Jallao (Hæmulon album), the largest of the grunts, there are no stripes at all. Another common grunt is the black spotted sailor's choice, Ronco prieto (Hæmulon parra), very abundant from Florida southward. Numerous other grunts and "Tom Tates" are found on both shores of Mexico, all the species of Hæmulon being confined to America. Anisotremus includes numerous deep-bodied species with smaller mouth, also all American. Anisotremus surinamensis, the pompon, abundant from Louisiana southward is the commonest species. Anisotremus virginicus, the porkfish or Catalineta, beautifully striped with black and golden, is very common in the West Indies. Plectorhynchus of Polynesia and the coasts of Asia contains numerous large species closely resembling Anisotremus, but lacking the groove at the chin characteristic of Anisotremus and Hæmulon. Some of these are striped or spotted with black in very gaudy fashion. Pomadasis, a genus equally abundant in Asia and America, contains silvery species of the sandy shores, with the body more elongate and the spines generally stronger. Pomadasis crocro is the commonest West Indian species, Pomadasis hasta the best known of the Asiatic forms. Gnathodentex aurolineatus with golden stripes is common in Polynesia.
The pigfishes, Orthopristis, have the spines feebler and the anal fin more elongate. Of the many species, American and Mediterranean, Orthopristis chrysopterus is most familiar, ranging northward to Long Island, and excellent as a pan fish. Parapristipoma trilineatum, the Isaki of Japan, is equally abundant and very similar to it. Many related species belong to the Asiatic genera, Terapon, Scolopsis, Cæsio, etc., sometimes placed in a distinct family as Teraponidæ. Terapon servus enters the streams of Polynesia, and is a very common fish of the river mouths, taken in Samoa by the boys. Terapon theraps is found throughout the East Indies. Terapon richardsoni is the Australian silver perch. Cæsio contains numerous small species, elongate and brightly colored, largely blue and golden. Scolopsis, having a spine on the preorbital, contains numerous species in the East Indies and Polynesia. These are often handsomely colored. Among them is the taiva, Scolopsis trilineatus of Samoa, gray with white streaks and markings of delicate pattern. A fossil species in the Italian Eocene related to Pomadasis is Pomadasis furcatus. Another, perhaps allied to Terapon, is called Pelates quindecimalis.
=The Porgies: Sparidæ.=—The great family of Sparidæ or porgies is also closely related to the Hæmulidæ. The most tangible difference rests in the teeth, which are stronger, and some of those along the side of the jaw are transformed into large blunt molars, fitted for grinding small crabs and shells. The name porgy, in Spanish pargo, comes from the Latin Pagrus and Greek πάγρος, the name from time immemorial of the red porgy of the Mediterranean, Pagrus pagrus. In this species the front teeth are canine-like, the side teeth molar. It is a fine food-fish, very handsome, being crimson with blue spots, and in the Mediterranean it is much esteemed. It also breeds sparingly on our south Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
Very similar to the porgy is the famous red tai or akadai of Japan (Pagrus major), a fish so highly esteemed as to be, with the rising sun and the chrysanthemum, a sort of national emblem. In all prints and images the fish-god Ebisu (Fig. 280), beloved of the Japanese people, appears with a red tai under his arm. This species, everywhere abundant, is crimson in color, and the flesh is always tender and excellent. A similar species is the well-known and abundant "schnapper" of Australia, Pagrus unicolor. Another but smaller tai or porgy, crimson, sprinkled with blue spots, Pagrus cardinalis, occurs in Japan in great abundance, as also two species similar in character but without red, known as Kurodai or black tai. These are Sparus latus and Sparus berda. The gilt-head of the Mediterranean, Sparus aurata, is very similar to these Japanese species. Sparus sarba in Australia is the tarwhine, and Sparus australis the black bream. The numerous species of Pagellus abound in the Mediterranean. These are smaller in size than the species of Pagrus, red in color and with feebler teeth. Monotaxis grandoculis, known as the "mu," is a widely diffused and valuable food-fish of the Pacific islands, greenish in color, with pale cross-bands. Very closely related is also the American scup or fair maid (Stenotomus chrysops), one of our commonest pan fishes. In this genus and in Calamus the second interhæmal spine is very greatly enlarged, its concave end formed like a quill-pen and including the posterior end of the large air-bladder. This arrangement presumably assists in hearing. Of the penfishes, or pez de pluma, numerous species abound in tropical America, where they are valued as food. Of these the bajonado or jolt-head porgy (Calamus bajonado) is largest, most common and dullest in color. Calamus calamus is the saucer-eye porgy, and Calamus proridens, the little-head porgy. Calamus leucosteus is called white-bone porgy, and the small Calamus arctifrons the grass-porgy.
The Chopa spina, or pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides, is a little porgy with notched incisors, exceedingly common on our South Atlantic coast.
In some of the porgies the front teeth instead of being canine-like are compressed and truncate, almost exactly like human incisors. These species are known as sheepshead, or sargos.
Diplodus sargus and Diplodus annularis are common sargos of the Mediterranean, silvery, with a black blotch on the back of the tail. Diplodus argenteus of the West Indies and Diplodus holbrooki of the Carolina coast are very close to these.
The sheepshead, Archosargus probatocephalus, is much the most valuable fish of this group. The broad body is crossed by about seven black cross-bands. It is common from Cape Cod to Texas in sandy bays, reaching rarely a weight of fifteen pounds. Its flesh is most excellent, rich and tender. The sheepshead is a quiet bottom-fish, but takes the hook readily and with some spirit. Close to the sheepshead is a smaller species known as Salema (Archosargus unimaculatus), with blue and golden stripes and a black spot at the shoulder. It abounds in the West Indies.
On the coast of Japan and throughout Polynesia are numerous species of Lethrinus and related genera, formed and colored like snappers, but with molar teeth and the cheek without scales. A common species in Japan is Lethrinus richardsoni.
Fossil species of Diplodus, Sparus, Pagrus, and Pagellus occur in the Italian Eocene, as also certain extinct genera, Sparnodus and Trigonodon, of similar type. Sparnodus macrophthalmus is abundant in the Eocene of Monte Bolca.
=The Picarels: Mænidæ.=—The Mænidæ, or Picarels, are elongate, gracefully formed fishes, remarkable for the extreme protractility of the upper jaw. Spicara smaris and several other small species are found in the Mediterranean. Emmelichthys contains species of larger size occurring in the West Indies and various parts of the Pacific, chiefly red and very graceful in form and color. Emmelichthys vittatus, the boga, is occasionally taken in Cuba, Erythrichthys schlegeli is found in Japan and Hawaii.
=The Mojarras: Gerridæ.=—The Gerridæ, or Mojarras, have the mouth equally protractile, but the form of the body is different, being broad, compressed, and covered with large silvery scales. In some species the dorsal spines and the third anal spine are very strong, and in some the second interhæmal is quill-shaped, including the end of the air-bladder, as in Calamus. Most of the species, including all the peculiar ones, are American. The smallest, Eucinostomus, have the quill-shaped interhæmal and the dorsal and anal spines are very weak. The commonest species is the silver jenny, or mojarra de Ley, Eucinostomus gula, which ranges from Cape Cod to Rio Janeiro, in the surf along sandy shores. Equally common is Eucinostomus californiensis of the Pacific Coast of Mexico, while Eucinostomus harengulus of the West Indies is also very abundant. Ulæma lefroyi has but two anal spines and the interhæmal very small. It is common through the West Indies. Xystæma, with the interhæmal spear-shaped and normally formed, is found in Asia and Polynesia more abundantly than in America, although one species, Xystæma cinereum, the broad shad, or Mojarra blanca, is common on both shores of tropical America. Xystæma gigas is found in Polynesia, X. oyena in Japan, and X. filamentosum in Formosa and India. Xystæma massalongoi is also fossil in the Miocene of Austria. The species of Gerres have very strong dorsal and anal spines and the back much elevated. Gerres plumieri, the striped mojarra, Gerres brasiliensis, the patao, Gerres olisthostomus, the Irish pampano, and Gerres rhombeus are some of the numerous species found on the Florida coast and in the West Indies. The family of Leiognathidæ, already noticed (page 287), should stand next to the Gerridæ.
=The Rudder-fishes: Kyphosidæ.=—The Kyphosidæ, called rudder-fishes, have no molars, the front of the jaws being occupied by incisors, which are often serrated, loosely attached, and movable. The numerous species are found in the warm seas and are chiefly herbivorous.
Boops boops and Boops salpa, known as boga and salpa, are elongate fishes common in the Mediterranean. Other Mediterranean forms are Spondyliosoma cantharus, Oblata melanura, etc. Girella nigricans is the greenfish of California, everywhere abundant about rocks to the south of San Francisco, and of considerable value as food. Almost exactly like it is the Mejinadai (Girella punctata) of Japan. The best-known members of this group belong to the genus Kyphosus. Kyphosus sectatrix is the rudder-fish, or Chopa blanca, common in the West Indies and following ships to the northward even as far as Cape Cod, once even taken at Palermo. It is supposed that it is enticed by the waste thrown overboard. Kyphosus elegans is found on the west coast of Mexico, Kyphosus tahmel in the East Indies and Polynesia, and numerous other species occur in tropical America and along the coasts of southern Asia. Sectator ocyurus is a more elongate form of rudder-fish, striped with bright blue and yellow, found in the Pacific. Medialuna californiensis is the half-moon fish, or medialuna, of southern California, an excellent food-fish frequently taken on rocky shores. Numerous related species occur in the Indian seas.
Fossil fragments in Europe have been referred to Boops, Spondyliosoma, and other genera.
XX. THE SURMULLETS, THE CROAKERS AND THEIR RELATIVES
=THE Surmullets, or Goatfishes: Mullidæ.=—The Mullidæ (Surmullets) are shore-fishes of the warm seas, of moderate size, with small mouth, large scales, and possessing the notable character of two long, unbranched barbels of firm substance at the chin. The dorsal fins are short, well separated, the first of six to eight firm spines. There are two anal spines and the ventral fins, thoracic, are formed of one spine and five rays. The flesh is white and tender, often of very superior flavor. The species are carnivorous, feeding chiefly on small animals. They are not voracious, and predaceous fishes feed freely on them. The coloration is generally bright, largely red or golden, in nearly all cases with an under layer, below the scales, of red, which appears when the fish is scaled or placed in alcohol. The barbels are often bright yellow, and when the fish swims along the bottom these are carried in advance, feeling the way. Testing the bottom with their feelers, these fishes creep over the floor of shallow waters, seeking their food.
The numerous species are all very much alike in form, and the current genera are separated by details of the arrangement of the teeth. But few are found outside the tropics.
The surmullet or red mullet of Europe, Mullus barbatus, is the most famous species, placed by the Romans above all other fishes unless it be the scarus, Sparisoma cretense. From the satirical poets we learn that "enormous prices were paid for a fine fish, and it was the fashion to bring the fish into the dining-room and exhibit it alive before the assembled guests, so that they might gloat over the brilliant and changing colors during the death-agonies." It is red in life, and when the scales are removed, the color is much brighter.
It is an excellent fish, tender and rich, but nowhere so extravagantly valued to-day as was formerly the case in Rome. Mullus surmuletus is a second European species, scarcely different from Mullus barbatus.
Equally excellent as food and larger in size are two Polynesian species known as kumu and munu (Pseudupeneus porphyreus and Pseudupeneus bifasciatus). Mullus auratus is a small surmullet occasionally taken off our Atlantic coast, but in deeper water than that frequented by the European species. Pseudupeneus maculatus is the red goatfish or salmonete, common from Florida to Brazil, as is also the yellow goatfish, Pseudupeneus martinicus, equally valued. Many other species are found in tropical America, Polynesia, and the Indies and Japan. Perhaps the most notable are Upeneus vittatus, striped with yellow and with the caudal fin cross-barred and the belly sulphur-yellow, and Upeneus arge, similar, the belly white. The common red and black-banded "moana" or goatfish of Hawaii is Pseudupeneus multifasciatus.
No fossil Mullidæ are recorded, so far as known to us.
=The Croakers: Sciænidæ.=—The family of Sciænidæ (croakers, roncadors) is another of the great groups of food-fishes. The species are found on every sandy shore in warm regions and all of them are large enough to have value as food, while many have flesh of superior quality. None are brightly colored, most of the species being nearly plain silvery.
Special characters are the cavernous structure of the bones of the head, which are full of mucous tracts, the specialization (and occasional absence) of the air-bladder, and the presence of never more than two anal spines, one of these being sometimes very large. Most of the species are marine, all are carnivorous; none inhabit rocky places and none descend to depths in the sea. At the least specialized extreme of the family, the mouth is large with strong canines and the species are slender, swift, and predaceous.
The weakfish or squeteague (Cynoscion regalis) is a type of a multitude of species, large, swift, voracious, but with tender flesh, which is easily torn. The common weakfish, abundant on our Atlantic coast, suffers much at the hands of its enemy and associate, the bluefish. It is one of the best of all our food-fishes. Farther south the spotted weakfish (Cynoscion nebulosus), very incorrectly known as sea-trout, takes its place, and about New Orleans is especially and justly prized.
The California "bluefish," Cynoscion parvipinnis, is very similar to these Atlantic species, and there are many other species of Cynoscion on both coasts of tropical America, forming a large part of the best fish-supply of the various markets of the mainland. On the rocky islands, as Cuba, and about coral reefs, Sciænidæ are practically unknown. In the Gulf of California, the totuava, Cynoscion macdonaldi, reaches a weight of 172 pounds, and the stateliest of all, the great "white sea-bass" of California, Cynoscion nobilis, reaches 100 pounds. In these large species the flesh is much more firm than in the weakfish and thus bears shipment better. Cynoscion has canines in the upper jaw only and its species are all American. In the East Indies the genus Otolithes has strong canines in both jaws. Its numerous species are very similar in form, habits, and value to those of Cynoscion. The queenfish, Seriphus politus, of the California coast, is much like the others of this series, but smaller and with no canines at all. It is a very choice fish, as are also the species of Macrodon (Ancylodon) known as pescadillo del red, voracious fishes of both shores of South America.
Plagioscion squamosissimus and numerous species of Plagioscion and other genera live in the rivers of South America. A single species, the river-drum, gaspergou, river sheepshead, or thunder-pumper (Aplodinotus grunniens), is found in streams in North America. This is a large fish reaching a length of nearly three feet. It is very widely distributed, from the Great Lakes to Rio Usumacinta in Guatemala, whence it has been lately received by Dr. Evermann. This species abounds in lakes and sluggish rivers. The flesh is coarse, and in the Great Lakes it is rarely eaten, having a rank odor. In Louisiana and Texas it is, however, regarded as a good food-fish. In this species the lower pharyngeals are very large and firmly united, while, as in all other Sciænidæ, except the genus Pogonias, these bones are separated. In all members of the family the ear-bones or otoliths are largely developed, often finely sculptured. The otoliths of the river-drum are known to Wisconsin boys as "lucky-stones," each having a rude impress of the letter L. The names roncador, drum, thunder-pumper, croaker, and the like refer to the grunting noise made by most Sciænidæ in the water, a noise at least connected with the large and divided air-bladder.
Numerous silvery species belong to Larimus, Corvula, Odontoscion, and especially to Bairdiella, a genus in which the second anal spine is unusually strong. The mademoiselle, Bairdiella chrysura is a pretty fish of our Atlantic coast, excellent as a pan fish. In Bairdiella ensifera of Panama the second anal spine is enormously large, much as in a robalo (Oxylabrax).
In Stellifer and Nebris, the head is soft and spongy. Stellifer lanceolatus is occasionally taken off South Carolina, and numerous other species of this and related genera are found farther South.
Sciænops ocellata is the red-drum or channel bass of our South Atlantic coast, a most important food-fish reaching a weight of seventy-five pounds. It is well marked by a black ocellus on the base of the tail. On the coast of Texas, this species, locally called redfish, exceeds in economic value all other species found in that State.
Pseudosciæna aquila, the maigre of southern Europe, is another large fish, similar in value to the red drum. Pseudosciæna antarctica is the kingfish of Australia. To Sciæna belong many species, largely Asiatic, with the mouth inferior, without barbels, the teeth small, and the convex snout marked with mucous pores. Sciæna umbra, the ombre, is the common European species, Sciæna saturna, the black roncador of California, is much like it. Sciæna deliciosa is one of the most valued food-fishes of Peru, and Sciæna argentata is valued in Japan. Species of Sciæna are especially numerous on the coasts of India.
Roncador stearnsi, the California roncador, is a large fish with a black ocellus at the base of the pectoral. It has some importance in the Los Angeles market. The goody, spot, or lafayette (Leiostomus xanthurus) is a small, finely flavored species abundant from Cape Cod to Texas. Similar to it but inferior is the little roncador (Genyonemus lineatus) of California. The common croaker, Micropogon undulatus, is very abundant on our Eastern coast, and other species known as verrugatos or white-mouthed drummers replace it farther South.
In Umbrina the chin has a short thick barbel. The species abound in the tropics, Umbrina cirrosa in the Mediterranean; Umbrina coroides in California, and the handsome Umbrina roncador, the yellow-tailed roncador, in southern California. The kingfish, Menticirrhus, differs in lacking the air-bladder, and lying on the bottom in shallow water the lower fins are enlarged much as in the darters or gobies. All the species are American. All are dull-colored and all excellent as food. Menticirrhus saxatilis is the common kingfish or sea-mink, abundant from Cape Ann southward, Menticirrhus americanus is the equally common sand-whiting of Carolina, and Menticirrhus littoralis the surf-whiting. The California whiting or sand-sucker is Menticirrhus undulatus.
Pogonias chromis, the sea-drum, has barbels on the chin and the lower pharyngeals are enlarged and united as in the river-drum, Aplodinotus. It is a coarse fish common on our Atlantic coasts, a large specimen taken at St. Augustine weighing 146 pounds. Other species of this family, belonging to the genus Eques, are marked with ribbon-like stripes of black. Eques lanceolatus, known in Cuba as serrana, is the most ornate of these species, looking like a butterfly-fish or Chætodon.
Several fossil fragments have been doubtfully referred to Sciæna, Umbrina, Pogonias, and other genera. Otoliths or ear-bones not clearly identifiable are found from the Miocene on. These structures are more highly specialized in this group than in any other.
=The Sillaginidæ, etc.=—Allied to the Sciænidæ is the small family of Kisugos, Sillaginidæ, of the coasts of Asia. These are slender, cylindrical fishes, silvery in color, with a general resemblance to small Sciænas.
Sillago japonicas, the kisugo of Japan, is a very abundant species, valued as food. Sillago sihama ranges from Japan to Abyssinia.
A number of small families, mostly Asiatic, may be appended to the percoid series, with which they agree in general characters, especially in the normal structure of the shoulder-girdle and in the insertion of the pectoral and ventral fins.
The Lactariidæ constitute a small family of the East Indies, allied to the Sciænidæ, but with three anal spines. The mouth is armed with strong teeth. Lactarius lactarius is a food-fish of India.
The Nandidæ are small spiny-rayed fishes of the East Indian streams, without pseudobranchiæ.
The Polycentridæ are small fresh-water perch-like fishes of the streams of South America, without lateral line and with many anal spines.
=The Jawfishes: Opisthognathidæ, etc.=—The Pseudochromipidæ are marine-fishes of the tropics with the lateral line interrupted, and with a single dorsal. They bear some resemblance to Plesiops and other aberrant Serranidæ.
Very close to these are the Opisthognathidæ or jawfishes with a single lateral line and the mouth very large. In certain species of Opisthognathus, the maxillary, long and curved, extends far behind the head. The few species are found in warm seas, but always very sparingly. Some of them are handsomely colored.
=The Stone-wall Perch: Oplegnathidæ.=—A singular group evidently allied to the Hæmulidæ is the family of Oplegnathidæ. In these fishes the teeth are grown together to form a bony beak like the jaw of a turtle. Except for this character, the species are very similar to ordinary grunts. While the mouth resembles that of the parrot-fish, it is structurally different and must have been independently developed. Oplegnathus punctatus, the "stonewall perch" (ishigakidai), is common in Japan, as is also the banded Oplegnathus fasciatus. Other species are found in Australia and Chile.
=The Swallowers: Chiasmodontidæ.=—The family of swallowers Chiasmodontidæ, is made up of a few deep-sea fishes of soft flesh and feeble spines, the opercular apparatus much reduced. The ventrals are post-thoracic, the rays I, 5, facts which point to some affinity with the Opisthognathidæ, although Boulenger places these fishes among the Percesoces. Chiasmodon niger, the black swallower of the mid-Atlantic, has exceedingly long teeth and the whole body so distensible that it can swallow fishes of many times its own size. According to Gill:
"It espies a fish many times larger than itself, but which, nevertheless, may be managed; it darts upon it, seizes it by the tail and gradually climbs over it with its jaws, first using one and then the other; as the captive is taken in the stomach and integuments stretch out, and at last the entire fish is passed through the mouth and into the stomach, and the distended belly appears as a great bag, projecting out far backwards and forwards, over which is the swallower with the ventrals dislocated and far away from their normal place. The walls of the stomach and belly have been so stretched that they are transparent, and the species of the fish can be discerned within. But such rapacity is more than the captor itself can stand. At length decomposition sets in, the swallower is forced belly upwards, and the imprisoned gas, as in a balloon, takes it upwards from the depths to the surface of the ocean, and there, perchance, it may be found and picked up, to be taken home for a wonder, as it is really. Thus have at least three specimens found their way into museums—one being in the United States National Museum— and in each the fish in the stomach has been about twice as long, and stouter in proportion, than the swallower—six to twelve times bulkier! Its true habitat seems to be at a depth of about 1,500 fathoms."
Allied to this family is the little group of Champsodontidæ of Japan and the East Indies. Champsodon vorax looks like a young Uranoscopus. The body is covered with numerous lateral lines and cross-lines.
=The Malacanthidæ.=—The Malacanthidæ are elongate fishes, rather handsomely colored, with a strong canine on the premaxillary behind. Malacanthus plumieri, the matajuelo blanco, a slender fish of a creamy-brown color, is common in the West Indies. Other species are found in Polynesia, the most notable being Malacanthus (or Oceanops) lativittatus, a large fish of a brilliant sky-blue, with a jet-black lateral band. In Samoa this species is called gatasami, the "eye of the sea."
=The Blanquillos: Latilidæ.=—The Latilidæ, or blanquillos, have also an enlarged posterior canine, but the body is deeper and the flesh more firm. The species reach a considerable size and are valued as food. Lopholotilus chamæleonticeps is the famous tilefish dredged in the depths under the Gulf Stream. It is a fish of remarkable beauty, red and golden. This species, Professor Gill writes, "was unknown until 1879, when specimens were brought by fishermen to Boston from a previously unexplored bank about eighty miles southeast of No Man's Land, Mass. In the fall of 1880 it was found to be extremely abundant everywhere off the coast of southern New England at a depth of from seventy-five to two hundred and fifty fathoms. The form of the species is more compressed, and higher, than in most of the family, and what especially distinguishes it is the development of a compressed, 'fleshy, fin-like appendage over the back part of the head and nape, reminding one of the adipose fin of the salmonids and catfishes.' It is especially notable, too, for the brilliancy of its colors, as well as for its size, being by far larger than any other member of its family. A weight of fifty pounds or more is, or rather, one might say, was frequently attained by it, although such was very far above the average, that being little over ten pounds. In the reach of water referred to, it could once be found abundantly at any time, and caught by hook and line. After a severe gale in March, 1882, millions of tilefish could be seen, or calculated for, on the surface of the water for a distance of about three hundred miles from north to south, and fifty miles from east to west. It has been calculated by Capt. Collins that as many as one thousand four hundred and thirty-eight millions were scattered over the surface. This would have allowed about two hundred and twenty-eight pounds to every man, woman and child of the fifty million inhabitants of the United States! On trying at their former habitat the next fall, as well as all successive years to the present time, not a single specimen could be found where formerly it was so numerous. We have thus a case of a catastrophe which, as far as has been observed, caused complete annihilation of an abundant animal in a very limited period. Whether the grounds it formerly held will be reoccupied subsequently by the progeny of a protected colony remains to be seen, but it is scarcely probable that the entire species has been exterminated." It is now certain that the species is not extinct.
Caulolatilus princeps is the blanquillo or "whitefish" of southern California, a large handsome fish formed like a dolphin, of purplish, olivaceous color and excellent flesh. Other species of Caulolatilus are found in the West Indies. Latilus japonicus is the amadai or sweet perch of Japan, an excellent food-fish of a bright crimson color.
The Pinguipedidæ of Chile resemble the Latilidæ, having also the enlarged premaxillary tooth. The ventrals are, however, thickened and placed farther forward.
=The Bandfishes: Cepolidæ.=—The small family of Cepolidæ, or bandfishes, resemble the Latilidæ somewhat and are probably related to them. The head is normally formed, the ventral fins are thoracic, with a spine and five rays, but the body is drawn out into a long eel-like form, the many-rayed dorsal and anal fins meeting around the tail. The few species are crimson in color with small scales. They are used as food, but the flesh is dry and the bones are stiff and numerous. Cepola tænia is common in the Mediterranean, and Acanthocepola krusensterni abounds in the bays of southern Japan.
=The Cirrhitidæ.=—The species of the family Cirrhitidæ strongly resemble the smaller Serranidæ and even Serranus itself, but the lower rays of the pectoral fins are enlarged and are undivided, as in the sea-scorpions and some sculpins. In these fishes, however, the bony stay, which characterizes Scorpænidæ and Cottidæ, is wholly absent. It is, however, considered possible that this interesting family represents the point of separation at which the mail-cheeked fishes become differentiated from the typical perch-like forms. Goniistius zonatus, the takanohadai, is a valuable food-fish of Japan, marked by black cross-bands. Paracirrhites forsteri and other species of Cirrhitus and Paracirrhites are very pretty fishes of the coral reefs, abundant in the markets of Honolulu, the spotted Cirrhitus marmoratus being the most widely diffused of these. Only one species of this family, Cirrhitus rivulatus, a large fish, green, with blue markings, is found in American waters. It frequents the rocky shores of the west coast of Mexico.
Allied to the Cirrhitidæ is the small family of Latrididæ, with a long dorsal fin deeply divided, and the lower rays of the pectoral similarly modified. Latris hecateia is called the "trumpeter" in Australian waters. It is one of the best food-fishes of Australia, reaching a weight of sixty to eighty pounds.
Another small family showing the same peculiar structure of the pectoral fin is that of the Aplodactylidæ. The species of Aplodactylus live on the coasts of Chile and Australia. They are herbivorous fishes, with flat, tricuspid teeth, and except for their pectoral fins are very similar to the Kyphosidæ.
=The Sandfishes: Trichodontidæ.=—In the neighborhood of the Latrididæ, Dr. Boulenger places the Trichodontidæ or sandfishes, small, scaleless, silvery fishes of the northern Pacific. These are much compressed in body, with very oblique mouths, with fringed lips and, as befits their northern habitat, with a much increased number of vertebræ. They bury themselves in sand under the surf, and the two species, Trichodon trichodon and Arctoscopus japonicus, range very widely in the regions washed by the Japan current. These species bear a strong resemblance to the star-gazers (Uranoscopus), but this likeness seems to be superficial only.
XXI. LABYRINTHICI AND HOLCONOTI
=THE Labyrinthine Fishes.=—An offshoot of the Percomorphi is the group of Labyrinthici, composed of perch-like fishes which have a very peculiar structure to the pharyngeal bones and respiratory apparatus. This feature is thus described by Dr. Gill:
"The upper elements of one of the pairs of gill-bearing arches are peculiarly modified. The elements in question (called branchihyal) of each side, instead of being straight and solid, as in most fishes, are excessively developed and provided with several thin plates or folds, erect from the surface of the bones and the roof of the skull, to which the bones are attached. These plates, by their intersection, form chambers, and are lined with a vascular membrane, which is supplied with large blood-vessels. It was formerly supposed that the chambers referred to had the office of receiving and retaining supplies of water which should trickle down and keep the gills moist; such was supposed to be an adaptation for the sustentation of life out of the water. The experiments of Surgeon Day, however, throw doubt upon this alleged function, and tend to show: (1) that these fishes died when deprived of access to atmospheric air, not from any deleterious properties either in the water or in the apparatus used, but from being unable to subsist on air obtained solely from the water, aerial respiration being indispensable; (2) that they can live in moisture out of the water for lengthened periods, and for a short, but variable period in water only; and (3) that the cavity or receptacle does not contain water, but has a moist secreting surface, in which air is retained for the purpose of respiration. It seems probable that the air, after having been supplied for aerial respiration, is ejected by the mouth, and not swallowed to be discharged per anum. In fine, the two respiratory factors of the branchial apparatus have independent functions: (1) the labyrinthiform, or branchihyal portion, being a special modification for the respiration of atmospheric air, and (2) the gill filaments discharging their normal function. If, however, the fish is kept in water and prevented from coming to the surface to swallow the atmospheric air, the labyrinthiform apparatus becomes filled with water which cannot be discharged, owing to its almost non-contractile powers. There is thus no means of emptying it, and the water probably becomes carbonized and unfit for oxygenizing the blood, so that the whole of the respiration is thus thrown on the branchiæ. This will account for the fact that when the fish is in a state of quiescence, it lives much longer than when excited, whilst the sluggishness sometimes evinced may be due to poisoned or carbonized blood."
Four families of labyrinth-gilled fishes are recognized by Professor Gill; and to these we may append a fifth, which, however, lacks the elaborate structures mentioned above and which shows other evidences of degeneration.
=The Climbing-perches: Anabantidæ.=—The family of Anabantidæ, according to Gill, "includes those species which have the mouth of moderate size and teeth on the palate (either on the vomer alone, or on both the vomer and palatine bones). To the family belongs the celebrated climbing-fish.
"The climbing-fish (Anabas scandens) is especially noteworthy for the movability of the suboperculum. The operculum is serrated. The color is reddish olive, with a blackish spot at the base of the caudal fin; the head, below the level of the eye, grayish, but relieved by an olive band running from the angle of the mouth to the angle of the preoperculum, and with a black spot on the membrane behind the hindermost spines of the operculum.
"The climbing-fish was first made known in a memoir, printed in 1797, by Daldorf, a lieutenant in the service of the Danish East India Company at Tranquebar. Daldorf called it Perca scandens, and affirmed that he himself had taken one of these fishes, clinging by the spine of its operculum in a slit in the bark of a palm (Borassus flabelliformis) which grew near a pond. He also described its mode of progression; and his observations were substantially repeated by the Rev. Mr. John, a missionary resident in the same country. His positive evidence was, however, called into question by those who doubted on account of hypothetical considerations. Even in popular works not generally prone to even a judicious skepticism, the accounts were stigmatized as unworthy of belief. We have, however, in answer to such doubts, too specific information to longer distrust the reliability of the previous reports.
"Mr. Rungasawmy Moodeliar, a native assistant of Capt. Jesse Mitchell of the Madras Government Central Museum, communicated to his superior the statement that 'this fish inhabits tanks or pools of water, and is called Panai feri, i.e., the fish that climbs palmyra-trees. When there are palmyra-trees growing by the side of a tank or pool, when heavy rain falls and the water runs profusely down their trunks, this fish, by means of its opercula, which move unlike those of other fishes, crawls up the tree sideways (i.e., inclining to the sides considerably from the vertical) to a height of from five to seven feet, and then drops down. Should this fish be thrown upon the ground, it runs or proceeds rapidly along in the same manner (sideways) as long as the mucus on it remains.'
"These movements are effected by the opercula, which, it will be remembered, are unusually mobile in this species; they can, according to Captain Mitchell (and I have verified the statement), be raised or turned outwards to nearly a right angle with the body, and when in that position, the suboperculum distends a little, and it appears that it is chiefly by the spines of this latter piece that the fish takes a purchase on the tree or ground. 'I have,' says Captain Mitchell, 'ascertained by experiment that the mere closing of the operculum, when the spines are in contact with any surface, even common glass, pulls an ordinary-sized fish forwards about half an inch,' but it is probable that additional force is supplied by the caudal and anal fins, both of which, it is said, are put in use when climbing or advancing on the ground; the motion, in fact, is described as a wriggling one.
"The climbing-fish seems to manifest an inclination to ascend streams against the current, and we can now understand how, during rain, the water will flow down the trunk of a tree, and the climbing-fish, taking advantage of this, will ascend against the down-flow by means of the mechanism already described, and by which it is enabled to reach a considerable distance up the trunk." (Gill.)
=The Gouramis: Osphromenidæ.=—"The Osphromenidæ are fishes with a mouth of small size, and destitute of teeth on the palate. To this family belongs the gourami, whose praises have been so often sung, and which has been the subject of many efforts for acclimatization in France and elsewhere by the French.
"The gourami (Osphromenus goramy) has an oblong, oval form, and, when mature, the color is nearly uniform, but in the young there are black bands across the body, and also a blackish spot at the base of the pectoral fin. The gourami, if we can credit reports, occasionally reaches a gigantic size, for it is claimed that it sometimes attains a length of 6 feet, and weighs 150 pounds, but if this is true, the size is at least exceptional, and one of 20 pounds is a very large fish; indeed, they are considered very large if they weigh as much as 12 or 14 pounds, in which case they measure about 2 feet in length.
"The countries in which the gourami is most at home lie in the intertropical belt. The fish is assiduous in the care of its young, and prepares a nest for the reception of eggs. The bottom selected is muddy, the depth variable within a narrow area, that is, in one place about a yard, and near by several yards deep.
"They prefer to use, for the nests, tufts of a peculiar grass (Panicum jumentorum) which grows on the surface of the water, and whose floating roots, rising and falling with the movements of the water, form natural galleries, under which the fish can conceal themselves. In one of the corners of the pond, among the plants which grow there, the gouramis attach their nest, which is of a nearly spherical form, and composed of plants and mud, and considerably resembles in form those of some birds.
"The gourami is omnivorous, taking at times flesh, fish, frogs, insects, worms, and many kinds of vegetables; and on account of its omnivorous habit, it has been called by the French colonists of Mauritius porc des rivières, or 'water-pig.' It is, however, essentially a vegetarian, and its adaptation for this diet is indicated by the extremely elongated intestinal canal, which is many times folded upon itself. It is said to be especially fond of the leaves of several araceous plants. Its flesh is, according to several authors, of a light-yellow straw-color, firm and easy of digestion. They vary in quality with the nature of the waters inhabited, those taken from a rocky river being much superior to those from muddy ponds; but those dwelling at the mouth of rivers, where the water is to some extent brackish, are the best of all. Again, they vary with age; and the large, overgrown fishes are much less esteemed than the small ones. They are in their prime when three years old. Dr. Vinson says the flavor is somewhat like that of carp; and, if this is so, we may entertain some skepticism as to its superiority; but the unanimous testimony in favor of its excellence naturally leads to the belief that the comparison is unfair to the gourami.
"Numerous attempts have been made by the French to introduce the gourami into their country, as well as into several of their provinces; and for a number of years consignments of the eggs, or the young, or adult fish, were made. Although at least partially successful, the fish has never been domiciliated in the Republic, and, indeed, it could not be reasonably expected that it would be, knowing, as we do, its sensitiveness to cold and the climates under which it thrives.
"The fish of paradise (Macropodus viridi-auratus) is a species remarkable for its beauty and the extension of its fins, and especially of the ventrals, which has obtained for it the generic name Macropodus. To some extent this species has also been made the subject of fish-culture, but with reference to its beauty and exhibition in aquaria and ponds, like the goldfish, rather than for its food qualities.
"The only other fish of the family that needs mention is the fighting-fish (Betta pugnax). It is cultivated by the natives of Siam, and a special race seems to have been the result of such cultivation. The fishes are kept in glasses of water and fed, among other things, with the larvæ of mosquitoes or other aquatic insects. 'The Siamese are as infatuated with the combats of these fishes as the Malays are with their cock-fights, and stake on the issue considerable sums, and sometimes their own persons and families. The license to exhibit fish-fights is farmed, and brings a considerable annual revenue to the king of Siam. The species abounds in the rivulets at the foot of the hills of Penang. The inhabitants name it 'pla-kat,' or the 'fighting-fish.'"
The Helostomidæ are herbivorous, with movable teeth on the lips and with long intestines. Helostoma temmincki lives in the rivers of Java, Borneo, and Sumatra.
The Luciocephalidæ of East Indian rivers have the suprabranchial organ small, formed of two gill-arches dilated by a membrane. In these species there are no spines in the dorsal and anal, while in the Anabantidæ and Osphromenidæ numerous spines are developed both in the dorsal and anal. Luciocephalus pulcher indicates a transition toward the Ophicephalidæ.
=The Snake-head Mullets: Ophicephalidæ.=—The family of Ophicephalidæ, snake-head mullets, or China-fishes, placed among the Percesoces by Cope and Boulenger, seems to us nearer the Labyrinthine fishes, of which it is perhaps a degenerate descendant. The body is long, cylindrical, covered with firm scales which on the head are often larger and shield-like. The mouth is large, the head pike-like, and the habit carnivorous and voracious. There are no spines in any of the fins, but the thoracic position of the ventrals indicates affinity with perch-like forms and the absence of ventral spines seems rather a feature of degradation, the more so as in one genus (Channa) the ventrals are wanting altogether. The numerous species are found in the rivers of southern China and India, crossing to Formosa and to Africa. They are extremely tenacious of life, and are carried alive by the Chinese to San Francisco and to Hawaii, where they are now naturalized, being known as "China-fishes."
These fishes have no special organ for holding water on the gills, but the gill space may be partly closed by a membrane. According to Dr. Günther, these fishes are "able to survive drought living in semi-fluid mud or lying in a torpid state below the hard-baked crusts of the bottom of a tank from which every drop of water has disappeared. Respiration is probably entirely suspended during the state of torpidity, but whilst the mud is still soft enough to allow them to come to the surface, they rise at intervals to take in a quantity of air, by means of which their blood is oxygenized. This habit has been observed in some species to continue also to the period of the year in which the fish lives in normal water, and individuals which are kept in a basin and prevented from coming to the surface and renewing the air for respiratory purposes are suffocated. The particular manner in which the accessory branchial cavity participates in respiratory functions is not known. It is a simple cavity, without an accessory branchial organ, the opening of which is partly closed by a fold of the mucous membrane."
Ophicephalus striatus is the most widely diffused species in China, India, and the Philippines, living in grassy swamps and biting at any bait from a live frog to an artificial salmon-fly. It has been introduced into Hawaii. Ophicephalus marulius is another very common species, as is also Channa orientalis, known by the absence of ventral fins.
=Suborder Holconoti, the Surf-fishes.=—Another offshoot from the perch-like forms is the small suborder of Holconoti (ὅλκος, furrow; νῶτος, back). It contains fishes percoid in appearance, with much in common with the Gerridæ and Sparidæ, but with certain striking characteristics not possessed by any perch or bass. All the species are viviparous, bringing forth their young alive, these being in small number and born at an advanced stage of development. The lower pharyngeals are solidly united, as in the Labridæ, a group which these fishes resemble in scarcely any other respects. The soft dorsal and anal are formed of many fine rays, the anal being peculiarly modified in the male sex. The nostrils, ventral fins, and shoulder-girdle have the structure normal among perch-like fishes, and the dorsal furrow, which suggested to Agassiz the name of Holconoti, is also found among various perch-like forms.
=The Embiotocidæ.=—The group contains a single family, the Embiotocidæ, or surf-fishes. All but two of the species are confined to California, these two living in Japan. The species are relatively small fishes, from five inches to eighteen inches in length, with rather large, usually silvery scales, small mouths and small teeth. They feed mainly on crustaceans, two or three species being herbivorous. With two exceptions, they inhabit the shallow waters on sandy beaches, where they bring forth their young. They can be readily taken in nets in the surf. As food-fishes they are rather inferior, the flesh being somewhat watery and with little flavor. Many are dried by the Chinese. The two exceptions in distribution are Hysterocarpus traski, which lives exclusively in fresh waters, being confined to the lowlands of the Sacramento Basin, and Zalembius rosaceus, which descends to considerable depths in the sea. In Hysterocarpus the spinous dorsal is very greatly developed, seventeen stout spines being present, the others having but eight to eleven and these very slender.
The details of structure vary greatly among the different species, for which reason almost every species has been properly made the type of a distinct genus. The two species found in Japan are Ditrema temmincki and Neoditrema ransonneti. In the latter species the female is always toothless. Close to Ditrema is the blue surf-fish of California, Embiotoca jacksoni, the first discovered and perhaps the commonest species. Tæniotoca lateralis is remarkable for its bright coloration, greenish, with orange stripes. Hypsurus caryi, still brighter in color, orange, green and black, has the abdominal region very long. Phanerodon furcatus and P. atripes are dull silvery in color, as in Damalichthys argyrosomus, the white surf-fish, which ranges northward to Vancouver Island, and is remarkable for the extraordinary size of its lower pharyngeals. Holconotus rhodoterus is a large, rosy species, and Amphistichus argenteus a large species with dull yellowish cross-bands. Rhachochilus toxotes is the largest species in the family and the one most valued as food. It is notable for its thick, drooping, ragged lips. Hyperprosopon arcuatus, the wall-eye surf-fish, is brilliantly silvery, with very large eyes. H. agassizi closely resembles it, as does also the dwarf species, Hypocritichthys analis, to which the Japanese Neoditrema ransonneti is very nearly related. The other species are all small. Abeona minima and A. aurora feed on seaweed. Brachyistius frenatus is the smallest of all, orange-red in color, while its relative, Zalembius rosaceus, is handsomest of all, rose-red with a black lateral spot. Cymatogaster aggregatus, the surf-shiner, is a little fish, excessively common along the California coast, and from its abundance it has been selected by Dr. Eigenmann as the basis of his studies of these fishes. In this species the male shows golden and black markings, which are wanting in the silvery female, and the anterior rays of the anal are thickened or otherwise modified.
No fossil embiotocoids are recorded.
The viviparity of the Embiotocidæ was first made known by Dr. A. C. Jackson in 1863 in a letter to Professor Agassiz. From this letter we make the following extracts:
"A few days, perhaps a week, after the four trials, and on the 7th of June, I rose early in the morning for the purpose of taking a mess of fish for breakfast, pulled to the usual place, baited with crabs, and commenced fishing, the wind blowing too strong for profitable angling; nevertheless on the first and second casts I fastened the two fishes, male and female, that I write about, and such were their liveliness and strength that they endangered my slight trout rod. I, however, succeeded in bagging both, though in half an hour's subsequent work I got not even a nibble from either this or any other species of fish. I determined to change the bait, to put upon my hook a portion of the fish already caught, and cut for that purpose into the larger of the two fish caught. I intended to take a piece from the thin part of the belly, when what was my surprise to see coming from the opening thus made a small live fish. This I at first supposed to be prey which this fish had swallowed, but on further opening the fish I was vastly astonished to find next to the back of the fish and slightly attached to it a long very light violet bag, so clear and so transparent that I could already distinguish through it the shape, color, and formation of a multitude of small fish (all facsimiles of each other), with which it was well filled. I took it on board (we were occupying a small vessel which we had purchased for surveying purposes). When I opened the bag, I took therefrom eighteen more of the young fish, precisely like in size, shape, and color the first I had accidentally extracted. The mother was very large round her center and of a very dark-brown color, approaching about the back and on the fins a black color, and a remarkably vigorous fish. The young which I took from her were in shape, save as to rotundity, perfect miniatures of the mother, formed like her, and of the same general proportions, except that the old one was (probably owing to her pregnancy) much broader and wider between the top of the dorsal and the ventral fins in proportion to her length than the young were. As to color, they were in all respects like the mother, though the shades were many degrees lighter. Indeed, they were in all respects like their mother and like each other, the same peculiar mouth, the same position and shape of the fins, and the same eyes and gills, and there cannot remain in the mind of any one who sees the fish in the same state that I did a single doubt that these young were the offspring of the fish from whose body I took them, and that this species of fish gives birth to her young alive and perfectly formed, and adapted to seeking its own livelihood in the water. The number of young in the bag was nineteen (I fear I misstated the number in my former letter), and every one as brisk and lively and as much at home in a bucket of salt water as if they had been for months accustomed to the water. The male fish that was caught was not quite as large as the female, either in length or circumference, and altogether a more slim fish. I think we may reasonably expect to receive the specimens by the first of December. But I can hardly hope to get satisfactory specimens of the fish as I found it, with young well grown, before the return of the same season, viz., June. By that time I trust the facts will be fully decided, and the results, as important as they may be, fully appreciated."
Dr. Jackson's specimens came from Sausalito Bay, near San Francisco. Soon after the publication of this letter a similar discovery was made independently by Dr. William P. Gibbons, of Alameda. Still other specimens were made known in 1854 by Dr. Charles Girard, these having been collected in connection with the United States Pacific Railroad Surveys. The species first examined by Dr. Jackson was named by Agassiz Embiotoca jacksoni.
In Professor Agassiz's comments on Dr. Jackson's discovery he makes the following observations (Amer. Jour. Science and Arts, 1854):
"The female genital apparatus in the state of pregnancy consists of a large bag the appearance of which in the living animal has been described by Mr. Jackson. Upon the surface of it large vascular ramifications are seen, and it is subdivided internally into a number of distinct pouches, opening by wide slits into the lower part of the sac. This sac seems to be nothing but the widened lower end of the ovary, and the pouches within it to be formed by the folds of the ovary itself. In each of these pouches a young is wrapped up as in a sheet, and all are packed in the most economical manner as far as saving space is concerned, some having their head turned forwards and others backwards. This is, therefore, a normal ovarian gestation. The external genital opening is situated behind the anus, upon the summit and in the center of a conical protuberance formed by a powerful sphincter, kept in its place by two strong transverse muscles attached to the abdominal walls. The number of young contained in this sac seems to vary. Mr. Jackson counted nineteen; I have seen only eight or nine in the specimens sent by Mr. Cary, but since these were open when received it is possible that some had been taken out. However, their size is most remarkable in proportion to the mother. In a specimen of Emb. jacksoni 10½ inches long and 4½ high the young were nearly 3 inches long and 1 inch high; and in an Emb. caryi 8 inches long and 3¼ high the young were 2¾ inches long and ⅞ of an inch high. Judging from their size, I suspected for some time that the young could move in and out of this sac like young opossums, but on carefully examining the position of the young in the pouches, and also the contracted condition of the sphincter at the external orifice of the sexual organs, I remained satisfied that this could not be the case, and that the young which Mr. Jackson found so lively after putting them in a bucket of salt water had then for the first time come into free contact with the element in which they were soon to live; but at the same time it can hardly be doubted that the water penetrates into the marsupial sac, since these young have fully developed gills. The size of the young compared with that of the mother is very remarkable, being full one-third its length in the one, and nearly so in the other species. Indeed these young Embiotocæ, not yet hatched, are three or four times larger than the young of a Pomotis (of the same size) a full year old. In this respect these fishes differ from all the other viviparous species known to us. There is another feature about them of considerable interest, that while the two adults differ markedly in coloration, the young have the same dress, light yellowish olive with deeper and brighter transverse bands, something like the young trout and salmon in their parr dress."