BELONE. 177 



red. Specimens are frequently brought from the 

 West Indies, called the Barracauda pike, having 

 all the external appearances of the one living on 

 this coast, with this difference, — that it varies 



THE SEA PIKE. 



from five to eight feet in length — and the bones, 

 in preparing it for a natural skeleton, be- 

 come green. There is another, spoken of by 

 Base, esox viridis, but it is not the Barracauda, 

 nor the bill-fish of Massachusetts, — though the 

 bones of the latter become greenish on exposure 

 to the sun. 



The head of a young sea-pike from Trinidad, 

 presented the writer by a seaman, the jaws of 

 which are seven inches from the tip to the articu- 

 lation, had a body six feet long. Though vora- 

 cious and active, it is much esteemed by some for 

 food. The sea-pike, however, may be consider- 

 ed scarce in these waters. 



We are assured by foreign writers, many of 

 12 



