HABITS OF THE SKIPJACK. 461 



"The Skipper is, more strictly than the gar-pike, a migratory fish, never being seen in the 

 channel until the mouth of June, and it commonly departs before the end of autumn. It does not 

 swim deep in the water, and in its harmless manners resembles the flying-fish, as well as in the 

 ' persecutions it suffers from the ravenous inhabitants of the ocean. The methods it adopts to escape 

 from their pursuit are peculiar. It is sometimes seen to rise to the surface in large schools and fly 

 over a considerable space. But the most interesting spectacle, and that which best displays their 

 great agility, is when they are followed by a large company of porpoises, or their still more active 

 and oppressive enemies, the tunny and bouito. Multitudes then mount to the surface and crowd on 

 each other as they press forward. When still more closely pursued they spring to the height of 

 several feet, leap over each other in singular confusion, and again sink beneath. Still further 

 urged, they mount again and rush along the surface by repeated starts for more than one hundred 

 feet, without once dipping beneath, or scarcely seeming to touch the water. At last the pursuer 

 springs after them, usually across their course, and again they all disappear together. Amidst 

 such multitudes for more than twenty thousand have been judged to be out of the water together 

 some must fall a prey to the enemy; but so many hunting in company, it must be long before the 

 pursuers abandon. From inspection we could scarcely judge the fish to be capable of such flights, 

 for the fins, though numerous, are small, and the pectoral far from large, though the angle of their 

 articulation is well adapted to raise the fish by the direction of their motions to the surface. Its 

 power of springing, therefore, must be chiefly ascribed to the tail and the finlets. It rarely takes 

 bait, and when this has happened the boat has been under sail, the men fishing with a 'lash' or 

 slice of mackerel made to imitate the living body. The Skipper has not been commonly taken since 

 drift-fishermen began the practice of sinking their nets a fathom or two below the surface, a cir- 

 cumstance which marks the depth to which they swim; but before this it was usual to take them, 

 sometimes to the amount of a few hundred, at almost evey shoot of the pilchard nets." 



This description of their habits is doubtless very applicable to those of the same species in 

 the Western Atlantic. I have frequently seen them in schools springing above the surface, but 

 have never had an opportunity to study their movements closely. The Skipjack probably feeds, 

 for the most part, on soft pelagic animals, the teeth in their jaws being very minute. Giiuther 

 states that the young, having the beak is still undeveloped, are met with everywhere in the open 

 ocean, in the Atlantic as well as in the Pacific. 



THE HALF-BEAK HEMIEAMPHUS UNIFASCIATUS. 



Species of this genus are abundant all over the world, and are particularly numerous in the 

 West Indies, where they are sometimes known by the Indian name "Balahoo." They are closely 

 related to the Skipjack, but have the upper jaw short and the lower jaw prolonged into a long, 

 slender beak. Our own species ranges in abundance from Cape Hatteras, through the West 

 Indies, to Rio Janeiro ; stragglers have been taken at Wood's Holl, Massachusetts, and a single 

 specimen at Danvers, Massachusetts. Stearns writes that it is a common fish along the Florida 

 coast, living in shoal water, and although so different in appearance is confused with the silver 

 gar-fish, Tylosurus. On some parts of the coast it remains all the year; in others, only in warm 

 weather. It swims in small schools, and it is probable that it spawns in the fall. 



158. THE PIKE FAMILY. 

 THE PIKE Esox LUCIUS. 



The Pike, Esox luciiis, is one of the very few species of fish which is found on both sides of 

 the Atlantic, and is equally familiar to the inland fishermen and anglers of North America, Europe, 



