Percesoces and Rhegnopteri 223 



as sharks would be. The long, knife-like teeth render them 

 very destructive to nets. The numerous species are placed 

 in the single genus Sphyrcena, and some of them are found in 

 all warm seas, where they feed freely on all smaller fishes, their 

 habits in the sea being much like those of the pike in the lakes. 

 The flesh is firm, delicate, and excellent in flavor. In the larger 

 species, especially in the West Indies, it may be difficult of 

 digestion and sometimes causes serious illness, or "ichthyosism." 



FIG. 176. Barracuda, Sphyrccna barracuda Walbaum. Florida. 



Sphyrcena sphyr&na is the spet, or sennet, a rather small 

 barracuda common in southern Europe. Sphyr&na borealis of 

 our eastern coast is a similar but still feebler species rarely 

 exceeding a foot in length. These and other small species are 

 feeble folk as compared with the great barracuda (Sphyr&na 

 barracuda) of the West Indies, a robust savage fish, also known 

 as picuda or becuna. Sphyr&na commersoni of Polynesia is a 

 similar large species, while numerous lesser ones occur through 

 the tropical seas. On the California coast Sphyr&na argentea 

 is an excellent food-fish, slenderer than the great barracuda 

 but reaching a length of five feet. 



Several species of fossil barracuda occur in the Italian 

 Eocene, Sphyr&na bolcensis being the earliest. 



Stephanoberycidae. We may append to the Percesoces, for 

 want of a better place, a small family of the deep sea, its 

 affinities at present unknown. The Siephanoberycida have the 

 ventrals i, 5, subabdominal, a single dorsal without spine, and 

 the scales cycloid, scarcely imbricated, each with one or two 

 central spines. The mouth is large, with small teeth, the skull 

 cavernous, as in the berycoids, from which group the normally 

 formed ventrals abdominal in position would seem to exclude it. 

 Stephanoberyx moncs and S. gilli are found at the depth of a 

 mile and a half below the Gulf Stream. Boulenger first placed 



