(iAKl'IKK. 



of the Flying-fish. "Sometimes," says Kiioyek", "it even 

 happens tliat a (Jarpike leaps into a hoat." For a vo- 

 racious fish, as we iiave stated above, the ott'ensive and 

 defensive weapons of the Garpike are of singular nature. 

 Though both jaws are elongated, tlie lower jaw, witli 

 its soft and somewhat ilcxililc tip, ran scarcel\' serve 

 un(h'r nrdinarx circiiinstances as a weapon of attack, a 

 funrlidu which must i-athcr licloiig to the up|icr jaw. 

 Whether the (iarpikc is ahk' to swallow the large fish, 

 no smaller than itself, wlii<li it lias sometimes been seen 

 to attack, is as yet unknown. Tiie fishermen declare 

 that tiic Garpike sometimi's engage in war among them- 

 selves, and do not escape easil}', as is shown by the 

 scars on their bodies. Day states, on Mr. Dunn's 

 autliorit\-, that the latter once received a Mackerel that 

 had iieen transfixed, just below the pectoral fin, li\- the 

 beak of a Garpike. wlii<h had broken ofir' short in the 

 struggle. A simihii- occurrence is mentioned by Couch*. 

 Mr. Cl.oGG' tells us of a fisherman who met wdth nuich 

 difficult v in taking a Salmon-peal from his net. On 

 searching for the cause he sa^v \\hat lie supposed to be 

 the ends of a stick protruding on each side of the fish, 

 but on extracting and examining it he found it to be 

 tlu' under jaw of a Garpike, known locally as a "long- 

 nose. " "There can l)e no doubt," he says, "the garfish 

 attacked the peal, rushing on it with sufficient force to 

 thrust the lower jaw com])letely tlu'ough the peal, which 

 must have broken oft" cither ])y the force of the blow 

 or by the struggles of each fish to free itself. The peal, 

 which weighed nearly four pounds, was struck behind 

 and just al)ove the pectoral fin, the jaw of the garfish 

 thus passing through tlie thickest part of the peal, re- 

 quiring — if we corajjare the weight of a swordfish to 

 that of a garfish — even greater velocity of attack in the 

 latter to cause so great a penetration through a fish than 

 it would in the fornier to penetrate many inches of 

 oak-plank.' Just as it has been shoAvn that the Sword- 

 fish attacks objects that can do it neither good nor harm, 

 and that it probably does so by mistake, it seems also 

 likely that these accounts of the Gari)ike may be ex- 

 plained in the same way. The Garpike, however, attacks 



its actual prey in tlie same manner, pierces it with one 

 of its jaws and then shakes it loose, or seizes it between 

 its jaws and worries it to death by means of the ])0w- 

 I'rful nio\(;ments of its head, or carries it for some 

 time in its beak before devouring it. 



The food of the (iarpike is composed chiefly of 

 young Herrings, Sticklebacks and other small fishes, 

 eru.staceans and other minute marine animals. Couch 

 found Herrings in its intestinal canal, Fk.sthom a large 

 (juantit\ of Three-spined Sticklebacks and, still oftener, 

 of Ithithva entomon, a Gammarid common in the Baltic. 

 Lii-iJi;i5oi{(; found the stomach to contain small fishes and 

 ants, Olsson'' small fishes, among them Sand-eels, and 

 Gammarids, beetles and flies. The Garpike digests its 

 food ipnckly, and in spite of the sim])licity of its in- 

 testinal canal extracts no small amount of nutriment 

 from till- food. The abdominal cavity is sometimes full 

 of fat, though the flesh appears somewhat dry. 



The Garpike spawns in spring and the early part 

 of summer, from April to June. The older fishes spawn 

 first. At this period it approaches the coast'. "In the 

 middle of May," says Eicstrom, "this fish begins to spawn 

 in the island-belt of Morko. The males and females then 

 ascend together in large shoals to spots along the coast 

 where the \vater is shallow. I have never seen the roe 

 of this fish in the water; but it is probably deposited 

 on tlie weeds, for it is always on a weedy bottom that 

 the Garpike is found during the spawning-season. The 

 roe I have found on cutting open specimens read\- to 

 spawn, was fine and greenish yellow in colour." Accord- 

 ing to Bexecke the eggs are from 3 to 3'/, mm. in 

 diameter, the surfsice being covered with numerous hair- 

 like filaments, some of them 1 cm. long, by means of 

 which they anchor themselves in the manner we have 

 described above. They develop so quickly, and the fry 

 grow so fast, that as early as August we may find small 

 Garpike 150 mm. long (Mal.m), and "during the sum- 

 mer" of 1837 Fries took a specimen 170 mm. long. In 

 the Cattegat the Garpike stays close in shore for some 

 time after the end of the spawning-season, to feast on 

 Herring-fry and Sand-eels; but those that spawn in the 



" The same statcinpiit is made by Fabeii, Fische Islands, p. 156. 



Land and Water, 8tli December, 1866. 

 <■ Zoologist, vol. XXXII, Sept. 1874, p. 4160. 

 '' Liinds Uiiiv. Arsskr. VIII, Afd. H, Xo. 7. p. 6. 



' In most localities tlie Garpike licralds the approach of the Mackerel, whicli soon nfiorwaids appear off the coa.st with the same 

 object. In England it is locally known by llio name of Mackerel-guide. 



.Vccoriling to Nll.sso.v there is a fairly general superstition, in the south of Sweden at least, tliat when many Garpike are caught in 

 spring, the summer will be very dry — and it is also believed, he says, thiit during the following year prices are always high. 



