108 CLASS XIV. 



Amer. Iil. p. 124, &c.), from which however another species must be dis- 

 tinguished which occurs in North America alone. The pike rarely attains 

 a length of more than three feet, or weighs more than twelve pounds, 

 although some have been taken that weighed twenty, thirty, or more 

 pounds. The pike is a very voracious, predacious fish, which feeds on other 

 fresh-water fishes, even of its own species, on frogs, rats, &c. ; it may 

 attain a great age^ 



Some other species of pike are also found in North America, as Esox 

 americanuisIjAC. (probably the species announced by Schoepf NaturforscJier, 

 XX. p. 26), also Esox estor Lesueur, Cuv. et Val. Poiss. PI. 542, &c. The 

 entire genus would seem to be confined to the northern hemisphere did we 

 not know from Peron's Voyage of a species which he appears to have caught 

 in Van Diemeu's Land. 



Stomias Cuv. Body elongate, with head short and gape of 

 mouth large. Lower jaw longer than upper. Teeth long, conical, 

 in an interrupted row in intermaxillary bone and lower jaw. Cir- 

 rus under the throat. Branchiostegous membrane with seventeen 

 rays. 



Sp. Stomias boa Val., Cuv. et Val. Polss. xviii. PI. 545, from the Medi- 

 terranean Sea ; much resembling ChauUodus, and perhaps not belonging to 

 the present family. 



++ Inferior pharyngeal hone single. {PharyngognatM malacopterygii 

 MuELL.) Body elongate, carinate oh both sides, with a row of longitudinal 

 scales. Swimming-bladder closed. 



Belone Cuv. Both jaws produced into a subulate snout, the 

 lower beyond the apex of upper. Small teeth in both jaws ; some 

 larger, conical, mixed with the smaller ; palate bones edentulous. 

 Branchiostegous membrane with 12 — 14 rays. Scales small. 



Sp. Belone vidgarisY kl^^c, Esox Belone L. (excl. syn. ), Bloch Iclith. Tab. 33, 

 Yarrell Brit. Fishes, i. p. 391, the gar-fish, horn-fish, Hornhecht, Orphie ; 

 in the North Sea ; this fish may attain the length of full two feet ; accord- 

 ing to Valenciennes small teeth on the vomer distinguish this species from 

 the rest, even from a very similar Mediterranean species with which it is 

 usually confounded (Belone acus'Ri&^o, C. Bonaparte jFaww. Ital. Tab. 122, 

 fig. i). Yet this character would seem at the least to be insecure, for 

 Kroeijer in the specimens from the North Sea examined by him did not 

 meet with these teeth. But in a specimen from our (Dutch) coasts I found 



^ There is an account or a story respecting a pike which was placed in a fish-pond 

 at Heilbron by the Emperor Frederic II. in 1230, with a Greek inscription on a ring, 

 and fished up again in 1497, having been thus more than 267 years old ; it was 19 feet 

 long. Compare Oken's Lehrbuch der Zoologie, II. 1816, s. 100, lor, and Valen- 

 ciennes in Cuv. et Val. Poiss. xviii. pp. 305 — 312. 



