HABITS OF GAR-FISH. 91 



of swallowiug it at its leisure ; for when an imitative bait 

 is attached to a hook, with the boat under sail, the 

 grasp becomes so firm as to di'ag the tempting morsel 

 away without the necessity of biting it through. There 

 are instances, howevei*, where something beyond the 

 impulse of appetite moves the fish. In the middle of the 

 summer I received from a skilful and obliging fisherman 

 a mackerel, which, among others, had been taken in a 

 drift-net, and which had a conspicuous wound which 

 penetrated the body near the pectoral fin, clearly show- 

 ing that it had been inflicted a few days before its cap- 

 ture. This fish was not visibly emaciated, although 

 from the size of the wound and the important parts 

 through which it had penetrated, the injury might be 

 judged to have been of a most formidable nature, and 

 the instrument by which it had been inflicted was still 

 remaining where it was pierced. This was the upper 

 jaw of the gar-fish, which had entered on the one side ; 

 it projected on the other side for about the fourth of an 

 inch, at which part the wound was larger, more torn, 

 and bore a much more morbid appearance. The lower 

 jaw of the gar-fish was not in the wound, and there is 

 little doubt it had been withdi-awn by the gar-fish ; the 

 broken jaw had been broken off close to the forehead. 

 I made the inquiry among the fishermen whether such 

 a case as this was known, and I was informed that a 

 short time previously one of them had caught with a 

 line a gar-fish, in which both the protruded jaws had 

 been broken off close to the head, the cause of which 

 may now be guessed at." 



In my museum can be seen a series of gar-pike from 

 the egg up to the adult fish. I have discovered that 

 the eggs are covered with spicule, which have the effect 

 of making them to adhere to weeds, &c. 



