FISHES OF NEW YORK? 317 



The Sheepshead killifish ranges from Cape Cod to Florida. It 

 is not important except as food for other fishes. Very common 

 in salt water ditches. 



One of the best of its family for aquarium purposes, as it 

 thrives and breeds in captivity; the young, however, may be 

 eaten by. their parents. 



Order SYNENTOGNATHI 



Family esocidae 



Needlefishes 



Genus tylosurus Cocco . 



Body elongate, very slender, not much compressed; both jaws 

 prolonged into a beak, the lower jaw somewhat the longer, 

 much the longer in young fishes, the very young resembling 

 Hemiramphus ; each jaw armed with a band of small, 

 sharp teeth, beside which is a series of longer, wide set, sharp, 

 conical, unequal teeth; no teeth on vomer or palatines; scales 

 small, thin; lateral line running along the side of the belly, 

 becoming median on the tail; no finlets; dorsal fin more or less 

 elevated anteriorly; caudal fin short, unequally lunated or 

 forked; pectorals moderate; ventrals small, the latter inserted 

 behind the middle of the body; gill rakers obsolete; bones 

 usually more or less green; size comparatively large. Species 

 numerous. Voracious fishes, chiefly American; one species 

 crossing to Europe; some of them entering rivers. This genus 

 differs from the old world genus E s o x (Linnaeus) Rafinesque 

 (:= B e 1 o n e, Cuvier) in the absence of gill rakers and of vom- 

 erine teeth. 



158 Tylosurus marinus (Walbaum) 



Billfish; Silver Gar 



Esox marinus Walbaum, Artedi. Gen. Pise. Ill, 88, 1792, based on Schopf, 



Sea Snipe, Long Island. 

 Esox longirostris Mitchill, Amer. Month. Mag. II, 322, March, 1818. 

 Belone trunvata Le Sueur, Jour. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. II, 126, 1821; De Kay, 



N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 227, pi. 35, fig. 112, 1842; Gunther, Cat. Fish. 



Brit. Mus. YI, 244, 1866; Storer, Hist. Fish. Mass. 136, pi. XXIV, 



fig. 3, 1867. 

 Tylosurns longirostris Jordan & Gilbert, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 374, 



1883. 



