VOL. 52 '909 



Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections 



VOL. V Quarterly issue Part 3 



THE ARCHER-FISH AND ITS FEATS 

 By THEODORE GILL 



A group of fishes of great interest on account of a most remark- 

 able feat of which some at least are capable is that of the family called 

 Archer-fishes or Toxotids. These have a characteristic form; the 

 contour is mostly of the rhomb-oval type, but from the middle of the 

 back and front of the dorsal fin there is a downward slope, which is 

 sometimes in so straight a line that the front half of the fish looks 

 as if it may have been planed off. The head is conical, the mouth 

 deeply cleft, so that its front is in the same line as the decline of the 

 snout; the upper jawbones {maxillaries) are unusually narrow, and 

 the lower jaw projects. The eyes are very large, lateral, convex, 

 variously mobile and in the type species at least the irises are giolden- 

 yellow. The dorsal fin is set far backward and has only 4 or 5 

 stout spines and a short soft portion. Other characteristics will be 

 noticed in the account of the habits of the best known species. All 

 the known species belong to a single genus — Toxotes. 



The osteological characters are so significant that a few points may 

 be noticed. The skeleton in its essential characteristics is of the 

 percoidean type, but the vertebral column is almost quite straight, 

 the neural spines have low set bases of insertion and the ribs are 

 inserted directly and rather high up on the centra of the vertebrae 

 behind parapophyses on the third and succeeding vertebrae ; the re- 

 cession of the dorsal fin backwards is coordinated with extremely 

 receding interneurals and with three free styliform interneurals in 

 front ; the suborbital chain is narrow and without a subocular shelf. 



The Toxotids are mostly inhabitants of the littoral waters and 

 mouths of rivers of southern and southeastern Asia and numerous 

 outlying islands from India to Polynesia. In brackish waters some 



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