LIFE IN TEFFE. 237 
engaged in catching the tiniest fishes, so insignificant in 
size that the regular fishermen, who can never be made 
to understand that a fish which is not good to eat can 
serve any useful purpose, always throw them away. Nev- 
ertheless, these are among the most instructive specimens 
for the ichthyologist, because they often reveal the relations 
not only between parent and offspring, but wider relations 
between different groups. Mr. Agassiz's investigations on 
these little fish here have shown repeatedly that the young 
of some species resemble closely the adult of others. Such 
a fish, not more than half an inch long, was brought to him 
yesterday. It constitutes a new genus, Lymnobelus, and 
belongs to the bill-fish family, Scomberesoces, with Belone 
and others, that long, narrow type, with a long beak, 
which has such a wide distribution over the world. In the 
Northern United States, as well as in the Mediterranean, it 
has a representative of the genus Scomberesox, in which the 
jaws of its long snout are gaping ; in the Mediterranean, 
and almost everywhere in the temperate and torrid zones, 
Belones are found in which, on the contrary, the bill is 
closed ; in Florida and on the Brazilian coast, as well as in 
the Pacific, species of Hemirhamphus occur in which the two 
jaws are unequal, the upper one being very short and the 
lower one enormously long, while the Amazonian bill-fish 
has a somewhat different cut of the bill from either of 
those mentioned above, though both jaws are very long, 
as in Belone. When, then, the young of this Amazonian 
species was brought to Mr. Agassiz, he naturally expected 
to find it like its parent. On the contrary, he found it far 
more like the species of Florida and the Brazilian coast, 
having the two jaws unequal, the upper one excessively 
short, the lower enormously long, showing that the Ama- 
