12 THE TARPON 



The scientific name of our tarpon is Tarpon atlanticus. 

 (Cuv. &Val.) 



It has been known by many colloquial names. One of the 

 earliest was Tarpum. G. Brown Goode in his Catalogue of the 

 Fishes of Bermuda says this name may have some connection 

 with the one current in Barbados, where it is called Caffum. It 

 is more probable that it is of Indian origin. Captain William 

 Dampier spoke of it in 1675 as the Tarpom and Roman in his 

 Concise Natural History of Florida (1775) did the same. The 

 word Tarpum was used by the Government in its publications 

 but that name has become obsolete. It was known by the 

 Creoles of Louisiana as the Grande Ecaille (large scale) ; by 

 the Georgians as Jew fish; at Pensacola as Silver fish; by the 

 natives of Massachusetts as Big Scale ; and it is called Sabalo, 

 Sadina, Savalo, Savalle and Savanilla by the Spanish- Amer- 

 ican peoples. The title Silver King has been frequently ap- 

 plied to it by admiring anglers. The name Tarpon is rapidly 

 supplanting all others by the common consent and usage of 

 the anglers who fish for it in steadily increasing numbers. A 

 technical description is here set forth from Jordan «& Ever- 

 mann's standard work entitled "American Food and Game 

 Fishes." 



"The Tarpons 



Family IX. Elopidae 

 "Body elongate, more or less compressed, covered with 

 silvery cycloid scales ; head naked ; mouth broad, terminal, the 

 lower jaw prominent; premaxillaries not protractile, short, 

 the maxillaries forming the lateral margins of the upper jaw; 

 an elongate bony plate between the branches of the lower 

 jaw; eye large with an adipose eyelid; bands of villiform teeth 

 in each jaw and on vomer, palatines, pterygoids, tongue and 

 base of skull ; no large teeth ; opercular bones, thin with ex- 

 panded membranous borders ; a scaly occipital collar ; gill- 

 membranes entirely separate, free from the isthmus ; branchi- 

 ostegals numerous (25 to 35); gill rakers long and slender; 



