238 THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



though stragglers may be taken all the year round, it 

 appears to arrive in shoals about March or April, and retires 

 to deeper water late in j:he autumn, being absent through- 

 out the winter and spring. In the Northern Herald 

 (Inverness, November 22nd, 1844) it was observed that 

 within the last three weeks this fish had been abundant ; 

 its visits are not periodical, either as regards seasons or 

 cycles ; in fact, twenty-two years had passed since they came 

 in considerable numbers ; about sixty years since there 

 were large shoals, and they were known as Gobbaiche 

 ardnasoar, or " snipe-fish." Although as observed, the gar- 

 fish is usually gregarious, Thompson remarked that in 

 Belfast Bay it is generally found singly. Mr. Cornish 

 (Zool. 1865, p. 9814) well describes the appearance of a 

 shoal of these fishes when chased by the tunny, how they 

 scudded rapidly over the face of the sea as though they 

 were actually swimming on the surface, having the larger 

 portion of their bodies in the air. When in pursuit of 

 shoals of small fish it appears to be springing over the 

 waves after them. It jumps over floating substances some- 

 times in a peculiar way, shooting itself bolt upright and 

 alighting in the water tail first. Mr. Couch recorded how, 

 in 1865, he found the upper jaw of a gar-fish transfixed 

 through the body of a mackerel. Mr. Dunn observed 

 upon another having similarly gone through the body of a 

 pilchard ; he also informed us, July 25th, 1881, that he had 

 obtained that morning a mackerel with the jaw of a gar-fish 

 transfixing the body just under the pectoral fin, where it had 

 broken off. The same accurate observer remarked that he 

 has reason to believe that they used their beaks as a ram 

 against their prey, sometimes transfixing their eyes. Should 

 they do this, of course both would be penetrated. S. Clogg 

 (Zool., June, 1874, p. 4160) observes upon a salmon-peal 



