THE TARPON 



CHAPTER I 



DESCRIPTION AND HABITS 



"I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy 

 evening to read this following Discourse; and that (if 

 he he an honest angler) the Eastwind may never Mow 

 when he goes a-Fishing." 



Isaac Walton to the Reader 



THE tarpon (Tarpon atlanticus) is a survival from an- 

 other geological epoch, and few teleostean fishes have 

 so old an ancestry. The family of the Elopidae is de- 

 cadent but the tarpon stands unrivalled as a game fish amongst 

 the hundreds of species inhabiting the salt waters of the east- 

 ern part of the Western Hemisphere. 



The family was very numerous as far back as the Cre- 

 taceous period and as early as the Eocene, the existing type 

 made its appearance. Allied genera have been found in the 

 Cretaceous of Europe, Mount Lebanon and Brazil. The 

 Elopidae have a bone between the branches of the lower jaw 

 called a gular plate which 1 am informed occurs in very few, 

 if any other, teleostean fish. 



It seems to be the rule that fishes having specialized struc- 

 tures like peculiar teeth or armor and those which are unsym- 

 metrical have usually failed to survive marked changes in the 

 physical history of the earth. The existence of the tarpon is a 

 cogent argument in favor of the conclusion that the least ex- 

 treme in type are best fitted to survive. 



The tarpon has been assigned many scientific names: 



Camaripuguacu. Marcgravs's History of Brazil. 1648. 

 Megalops atlanticus. Cuvier & Valenciennes. 

 Megalops elongatus. Girard Pro. Nat. Sci. Phil. 1858. 

 Megalops thrissoides. Giinther. 



