68 Papers from the Department of Marine Biology. 



Of the great barracuda, Cuvier and Valenciennes give an excellent 

 colored figure accompanied by a line drawing of the jaws and teeth. 

 The former figure is reproduced as figure 18 of plate v, while figures 

 19 and 20, plate vi, show both the line drawing referred to and 

 the head of the colored figure. The reader is particularly requested to 

 contrast the figure of the jaws and teeth with the photographs of 

 Florida specimens. Cuvier and Valenciennes note that the great 

 teeth are very large and non-arched, but their figure has them (espe- 

 cially the upper ones) curved backward. Of the other teeth thej^ say: 



"Each palatine has a number of large teeth, which may range from five or 

 six to ten or twelve, without any little ones, either in their intervals or 

 farther back. At the most each has three or four small ones, which are only 

 seen in young specimens or when one cleans off a skeleton. Hence the edge 

 of this bone is sharp and smooth." 



In their full-length figure the great teeth above and below are hooked 

 backwardly; there is only 07ie big canine below but two above. In the 

 line drawing two lower canines are seen straight and unpointed, while 

 the four big upper ones are backwardly hooked. 



Louis Agassiz (1843) not only figures the jaws and teeth of >S. barra- 

 cuda but the skull and skeleton as well. His beautiful figure, which in 

 the main points is technically correct, is herein reproduced as figure 

 21, plate VI, while figure 22, plate vi, is an enlarged photogi-aphic 

 copy of the skull and adjacent parts. The one point criticizable is 

 that the pelvic fin is possibly placed slightly too far forwards. After 

 noting that all the parts of the head are much elongated Agassiz says : 



"The intermaxillaries have a single row of small teeth on their lateral 

 border, but in front and a little inside there are two very large ones, compressed 

 and very trenchant, slightly bowed and very pointed, accompanied sometimes 

 by one or by two teeth much smaller. Farther back and on the same line, 

 the palatines bear a series of five or six equally large, sharp and pointed 

 teeth, not bent but for the most part like lance heads. Succeeding also to 

 these on the length of the palatines are twelve or fifteen teeth much smaller 

 and serrated like those on the intermaxil aries. The lower jaw has only two 

 large trenchant teeth, pointed and bent, at the anterior symphysis of the 

 branches of the mandible, which correspond to those of the upper jaw. Along 

 each arm of the lower jaw, there follows each other a series of teeth, trenchant, 

 straight, pyramidal in appearance, more or less large and more or less elon- 

 gated. These correspond to the grand palatines and fit in between these and 

 the intermaxillaries when the animal closes its formidable mouth." 



To recapitulate, Rondelet (1558) and Salviani (1554) each found a 

 single tooth at the symphysis of the branches of the lower jaw; so did 

 Sloane (1725) and Catesby (1754) and Parra (1787), while Biittikofer 

 (1890) found but one in the lower jaw of S. jello caught off the coast of 

 Liberia. Jordan and Evermann (1896) call for and figure but one. 

 Fowler (1903) found but one in S. tome. Bullen (1904), in his very 



