FISHES 137 



description not only are suitable for grasping but 

 they also will cut. Sharks with such teeth, therefore, 

 are able to take big bites from other sharks and 

 other animals. The barracuda of the tropics is an- 

 other fish with large sharp cutting teeth set in 

 powerful jaws. This fish with its ferocious-looking 

 mouth is feared more by bathers than the most 

 vicious shark. 



Large coarse teeth, suitable for cutting as well 

 as crushing, are found among the trigger-fishes. A 

 trigger-fish occurring on the Pacific coast of Central 

 America, at the size of about thirty inches, has teeth 

 not very unlike those of man and certainly quite as 

 large and massive. Teeth suitable only for crushing 

 also occur among fishes. The eagle-ray, for exam- 

 ple, which feeds largely on hard clams, has broad 

 blunt teeth arranged like bricks in a pavement. 

 Finally very small teeth are present in the herrings, 

 mullets, and other fishes which feed very largely on 

 minute animal and plant life screened from the water 

 or extracted from the mud. The common shad, for 

 example, has minute teeth only when young, losing 

 even these as it matures. 



Many fishes have teeth on the bones in the roof 

 of the mouth, on the tongue, or on the bones in the 

 throat, in addition to the ones on the jaws. The 

 most peculiar place of all for teeth occurs in the but- 

 ter-fishes, which have hooked teeth in the sacs situ- 

 ated in the esophagus. 



It has been shown that some fishes have little or 

 no use for teeth. Similarly some fishes have no use 

 for eyes. Those species that live continuously in the 



