316 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



General range. — Atlantic Coast of North 

 America, occurring regularly from South Carolina 

 to Cape Cod, and to Nova Scotia as a stray. 



Occurrence in the Ouij of Maine. — The sea horse 

 is not common much beyond New York. Only a 

 few are foimd each year about Woods Hole, chiefly 

 in July, August, and September, and they so rarely 

 stray past the elbow of Cape Cod that we have 

 found only one definite (Provincetown) and one 

 dubious (Massachusetts Bay) record of its capture 



in the inner parts of the Gulf of Maine, dead or 

 alive; and one record for Georges Bank. Three 

 specimens of the sea horse were also reported from 

 Nova Scotia more than % of a century ago; 87 and 

 Vladykov and McKenzie have reported one, picked 

 up in Terrance Bay, on the outer Nova Scotian 

 coast, Sept. 18, 1934, by V. Slaunhite. 88 



Commercial importance. — The sea horse is of no 

 commercial value, but it is an object of constant 

 interest to visitors to marine aquaria. 



THE TRUMPETFISHES. FAMILY FISTULARIIDAE 



The trumpetfishes are characterized by their 

 slender bodies and tremendously long heads, as 

 well as by the fact that the anterior bones of the 

 skull are prolonged in a very long tube with the 

 small mouth at its tip. The only other Gulf of 

 Maine species with which they could possibly be 

 confused is the pipefish (p. 312). In the latter, 

 however, the tubular snout occupies only about 

 one-eighteenth of the length of the fish whereas in 

 trumpetfishes it is nearly one-fourth. Further- 

 more, the pipefishes lack ventral fins which the 

 trumpetfishes have, while the caudal fin of the 

 trumpetfishes is forked, but that of the pipefishes 

 is rounded. 



Trumpetfish Fistularia tabacaria Linnaeus 1758 



CORNETFISH 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 757. 



Description. — The slender body and very long 

 tubular snout of this fish are mentioned above. 

 The body (to base of caudal fin) is about 30 to 35 

 times as long as it is deep and only about two- 

 thirds as deep as it is thick. The head occupies 

 almost one-third and the snout about one-fourth 

 of the body length. The bones of the snout are so 

 loosely united that the snout is very distensible. 



The mouth is small, situated somewhat obliquely 

 at the tip of the snout, and the lower jaw projects 

 a little beyond the upper. The caudal fin is deeply 

 forked and its middle rays are prolonged in a filament 

 about as long as the snout, but which is likely to 

 be broken off. Both the dorsal and the anal fins 

 are triangular, higher than long, the former stand- 

 ing exactly above the latter, about three-fourths of 

 the distance back from eye toward base of caudal 

 fin. The ventrals are very small, and are consid- 

 erably nearer to the eye than to the rear end of the 

 body (about one-third of the way from eye toward 

 the base of caudal fin). The skin is without scales 

 but with a row of embedded bony plates or shields 

 along either side, conspicuous rearward. 



Color. — Greenish brown above, the back and 

 sides marked with many large, oblong, pale blue 

 spots and with about 10 dark cross bars; the lower 

 surface is pale and silvery; the caudal filament deep 

 blue. 



Size. — Said to reach a length of 6 feet, but the 

 few specimens that stray northward are much 

 smaller. 



General range. — Tropical, southward to middle 

 Brazil, and common among the West Indies; rarely 



" By Knight (Catal. Fishes Nova Scotia, 1866, p. 9), as //. brairostris Storer 

 (1839); later by Jones, (Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 5, Part 1, 1882, 

 p. 95) as H. antiguorum Leach 1814. 



" Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 5. 



Figure 174. — Trumpetfish (Fistularia tabacaria), from near Woods Hole. After Storer 



