53 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the tropical regions of America and Africa there is found a 

 strange "fish," about three feet long, and called the lepidosiren 

 (Fig. 10) scaly siren, as the name implies. In its general aspect it 

 is decidedly reptilian, and some writers have described it under the 

 reptiles. Nor is it strange that naturalists should have been in doubt 

 in regard to its true affinities, for it is decidedly reptilian in appear- 

 ance, and is so unlike the typical fishes in structure that it has both 

 gills and lungs thus leading a sort of double life. It is believed 

 that in important respects this fish is like some of the fishes that lived 

 in the old Devonian times. 



Fia. 11. Gab-pike (Lepidosteus). 



The gar-pikes, too, depart considerably from ordinary fishes, 

 especially in their teeth, hard, shining scales, and heterocercal tail 

 (Fig. 11). 



And the sturgeons (Fig. 12), ballasted and protected with rows of 

 large bony plates, and with a nose fitted for " rooting," and a mouth 



Fig. 12. Sturgeon (Acipenser ooc7jrhijnchus, Mitchell). 



for sucking, and a tail more or less like that of a shark, are very un- 

 like anything we should select as a typical fish. 



And what shall we say of the " sea-horses," or hippocamps (Fig. 

 13), whose head reminds us far more of the head of a horse than it 



Fig 1.3 Ska-Horsr \Ilippocam.- 

 ptis Hudsonius, Dekay). 



Fig. 14. Pipe-fish {Sygnathus Peckianus, Storer). 



does of that of a typical fish ? And of the pipefishes (Fig. 14), or sy- 

 gnathi, whose body is all length, nearly, and whose mouth is just at 

 the extremity of a long snout ; and which have this strange habit. 



