EUROPEAN HALFBEAK. 137 



probability to this supposition; but the question has been set 

 at rest, first, by the discovery of the young of the Garfish of 

 no larger growth than the smallest of the Halfbeaks referred 

 to, but with the upper jaw of the fully proportioned length 

 of the full-grown fish; and again by the discovery of an example 

 of much larger, and we believe, adult growth, in which the 

 disproportion in the length of the jaws was more decided than 

 even in such examples as had before been met with. From 

 this example also it will be seen how it happens that a fish, 

 whose habit it is to keep at a distance from land, cannot have 

 been taken in nets, the meshes of which are of the usual size 

 for other fishes. 



It was on the 11th. of September, in the year 1847, that 

 some driving boats were at the distance of four or five leagues 

 from land, in weather inclined to be stormy, when a wave broke 

 into one of them; and when the first rush of water had subsided, 

 a fish was found to have been thrown on board, which was 

 immediately wrapped in a piece of cloth; and it was brought 

 to me as soon as the boat had reached the land. As regarded 

 it there could not be a mistake, although this example differed 

 in the length of the protruding jaw from such as I had seen 

 before; and it is from this example that our figure and description 

 are derived; with the addition, as we have said, of some notes 

 from others already referred to. 



The length was three inches and a half, the general figure 

 slender, as represented in the plate; from the angle of the 

 mouth to the point of the lower jaw one inch and about an 

 eighth, which is a longer proportion than in other specimens 

 I have seen, and in Mr. Yarrell's figure of another of my own. 

 The eye large and silvery; head flat; angle of the mouth 

 depressed, but the gape straight anteriorly; nostrils large, in a 

 depression close in front of the eye; upper jaw short, pointed, 

 with teeth along its length; lower jaw furnished with teeth 

 only so far forwards as corresponds with those of the upper 

 jaw; beyond this plain, without a furrow. The teeth are 

 perpendicular to the jaws, straight, not very closely set, long 

 for the size of the fish, but not of regular height. Lateral 

 line straight. Colour of the back bluish, separated from the 

 side by a defined line; side and belly silvery. Pectoral fins 

 high on the side, somewhat lengthened and slender; in which 

 VOL. IV. T 



