174 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



somewhat obliquely at the tip of the snout, and the lower jaw projects slightly 

 beyond the upper. The caudal fin is deeply forked and its middle rays are pro- 

 longed in a filament about as long as the snout. Both the dorsal (14 rays) and the 

 anal (13 rays) fins are triangular, higher than long, the former standing exactly 

 above the latter, about two-thirds of the distance back from eye to base of caudal 

 fin. The ventrals are much smaller — about midway between snout and tail. 

 The skin is scaleless but is studded with bony plates or shields. 



Color. — This fish (we have never seen it alive) is described as reddish brown 

 above, the back and sides with many large, oblong, pale blue spots, the lower 

 surface pale and silvery. 



Size. — Said to reach a length of 6 feet, but the few specimens that stray north- 

 ward are much smaller. 



General range. — Tropical; common among the West Indies, rarely wandering 

 northward as far as the Massachusetts Bay region. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — There is only one record of the trumpetfish 

 from the Gulf of Maine — a specimen taken at Rockport, Mass. (north side of Cape 



Fig. 80. — Trumpetfish (Fistularia tabecaria). After Storer 



Ann), in September, 1S65, and preserved in the collection of the Essex Institute, 

 where it was examined and identified by Goode and Bean (1879, p. 4). Like 

 other tropical fishes, however, it is not so rare west of Cape Cod, a few small ones 

 being taken at Woods Hole almost every year. 



THE PIPEFISHES. FAMILY SYNGNATHID.S 



In the pipefishes the anterior portion of the head takes the form of a long 

 tubular snout with the small mouth situated at its tip, the skin is armed with 

 rings of bony plates, and there is only one dorsal fin (soft rayed) and no ventrals. 

 The snout recalls that of the trumpetfishes (p. 173), but pipefishes differ from them 

 and from most other bony fishes in the structure of their gills, which take the form 

 of tufts of small rounded lobes instead of the familiar filaments. In this respect 

 their affinity is with the group of which the sticklebacks are the most familiar 

 exponents. There are many species of pipefishes in warm seas, but only one 

 occurs in the Gulf of Maine. 



