BELONE. 177 



red. Specimens are frequently brought from the 

 West Indies, called the Barracauda pike, having 

 all the external appearances of the one living on 

 this coast, with this difference, that it varies 



THE SKA PIKE. 



from five to eight feet in length and the bones, 

 in preparing it for a natural skeleton, be- 

 come green. There is another, spoken of by 

 Base, esox viridis, but it is not the Barracauda, 

 nor the bill-fish of Massachusetts, though the 

 bones of the latter become greenish on exposure 

 to the sun. 



The head of a young sea-pike from Trinidad, 

 presented the writer by a seaman, the jaws of 

 which are seven inches from the tip to the articu- 

 lation, had a body six feet long. Though vora- 

 cious and active, it is much esteemed by some for 

 food. The sea-pike, however, may be consider- 

 ed scarce in these waters. 



We are assured by foreign writers, many of 

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