3 o Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



along the coast of French Guiana," and it is common along the south coast of Cuba.'* 

 Definite information is lacking, however, as to its numerical status elsewhere. 



Relation to "Man. The Common Sawfish is of no commercial value anywhere in the 

 western Atlantic, though small ones have been described as being delicious pan fish 

 and the larger ones as yielding good steaks. But they are of considerable concern to 

 fishermen as nuisances because of the damage they do to drift- and turtle-nets, to seines, 

 and to shrimp trawls in which they often become entangled and because of the dif- 

 ficulty of disentagling them without being injured by their saws (p. 20). 



A few are occasionally caught, incidentally, by anglers with hook and line, while 

 some are harpooned. A large one puts up a powerful and dogged resistance, often 

 towing a small boat for a considerable distance, as we know from experience (p. 20). 

 But they are so slow-moving when hooked that few would rank them as worth special 

 pursuit as game fish. 



Range. Tropical-subtropical Atlantic, north and south; equatorial West Africa to 

 the Mediterranean in the east;" regularly in the west from mid-Brazil to the northern 

 shores of the Gulf of Mexico and to northern Florida; to North Carolina as a summer 

 visitor; less often to Chesapeake Bay; and as a rare straggler to New Jersey and the 

 vicinity of New York. It is represented on the Pacific Coast of Central America (p. 2 i), 

 and also in the corresponding latitudinal belt of the western Pacific and Indian oceans 

 and in South African waters,'* by close relatives, but their precise relationship to P.pec- 

 tinatus of the North Atlantic is still to be determined. 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. The localities of definite record for P.pectinatus 

 are distributed widely enough to show that it is of general occurrence in estuarine 

 situations and in the lower reaches of rivers, as well as along open coasts fronted by mud 

 flats. Its range extends from middle Brazil northward along the South American Coast, 

 throughout the Caribbean- West Indian region in general, around the western and 

 northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and along both coasts of Florida,'* northward 

 on the east coast to the Indian and St. Johns rivers. 



On the Atlantic Coast it is a year-round resident to northern Florida. Northward 

 beyond that it is known only as a summer visitor. Small numbers appear yearly on the 



75. Puyo, Bull. Soc. Hist. nat. Toulouse, yo, 1936: 89. 76. Personal communication from Luis HoweU-Rivero. 



77. It has long been appreciated that old reports of Sawfishes frequenting high latitudes, and of P. pectinatus in partic- 

 ular being near Spitzbergen (Bloch, Naturg. ausland. Fische, i, 1785: 42), had no basis in fact; we fancy that they 

 lead back to confusion with the Narwhal. 



78. Sawfishes from South Africa have been reported recently by Barnard (Pict. Guide S. Afr. Fish., 1948: 22) and 

 by Smith (Sea Fish. S. Afr., 1949: 63) under this name. 



79. Reported from Santos, Natal, and in fresh water from Para, in Brazil; from French and British Guiana; from fresh 

 water in the Essequibo River; from the Island of Trinidad and Venezuela; from the Atrato and San Juan rivers 

 in Colombia; from Martinique, Curasao, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica (personal communication from Luis HoweU- 

 Rivero), and both coasts of Cuba; from the vicinity of Matamoros on the Gulf Coast of Mexico near the Texas 

 border; along the Texas Coast in the Gulf of Mexico from oft" Laguna Madre in the south to the vicinity of Gal- 

 veston in the north; from various passages and bayous along the Louisiana Coast; from Lake Ponchartrain and the 

 lower Mississippi River, where it was said long ago to ascend to the Red River of Arkansas (Rafinesque, Ichthyol. 

 Ohiensis, 1820: 86); from Bimini, Bahamas (personal communication from C. M. Breder, Jr.), and from many 

 localities around the coasts of Florida, from Pensacola in the west to the Indian and St. Johns rivers in the east. 

 It is also listed from Rio de Janeiro (doubtfully), and from northern Argentina, Lat. 38° S (Pozzi and Bordale, 

 An. soc. cient. argent., 120, 1935: 152), but we have found no supporting evidence that it ranges that far south. 



