76 FISHES OF THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK 



fish resembling the Scad in the single detached finlet before the tail 

 above and below. It is not only much larger than the Scad, but lacks 

 as well any indication of scutes on the posterior lateral line. The Runner 

 is a brightly colored fish, bluish above, yellow below and on the tail, 

 with two conspicuous blue lengthwise bands on either side of the body. 



The Banded Rudder Fish is tolerably common with us in summer and 

 fall, a trimly built species generally a few inches long, swimming in 

 small schools with a tendency to follow boats or to linger about buoys 

 or drifting logs. It sometimes accompanies inshore sharks much as a 

 related Pilot Fish accompanies those further out to sea. The numerous 

 bold black bands crossing its body and fins make recognition easy. The 

 head is shapely and pointed, the mouth of moderate size and the entire 

 body covered with small smooth scales. The tail is of the typical, 

 forked, mackerel character and the peduncle before it is narrow and firm. 

 The related Amber Fish or Amber Jack, which is of accidental occurrence 

 near New York in late summer, reaches a much larger size, sometimes 

 weighing as much as a hundred pounds, and it is generally without 

 bands although the young are banded like the Banded Rudder Fish but 

 more narrowly. The Banded Rudder Fish has thirty-six to thirty-eight 

 rays in the dorsal fin, the Amber Jack thirty to thirty-four. In the 

 Pompanos, two species of which are tolerably common here in late 

 summer and autumn, the scales are reduced and inconspicuous. The 

 mouth is small, the snout region vertical and rather elevated, giving 

 them a peculiar appearance which makes recognition easy. The very 

 young have a well defined spiny fin in front of the soft dorsal but this 

 becomes less conspicuous as the fish mature, leaving only a few low spines 

 scarcely rising above the level of the back. The Round Pompano has 

 only nineteen or twenty soft rays in the dorsal fin and is deep in body, 

 the depth being contained about one and three fifths times in the length 

 to the base of the tail whereas the Common Pompano has twenty-five to 

 twenty-seven dorsal rays and the depth in the adult is between two and 

 two and one half. This latter is a delicious and important food fish of 

 the south, but grown Pompanos are almost unknown here, those that 

 reach us annually being almost without exception j^oung. 



The remaining six species are of questionable relationship not only 

 to the mackerels and pompanos but to one another as well. The Blue- 

 fish is pretty surely more closely allied to the bass, but its ocean life and 

 wanderings have given it a contour strongly suggestive of, for instance 

 the Jackfish. Its spiny dorsal fin is very small and weak, its tail fin an 



