THE GARFISH OR GUARD-FISH FAMILY. 



THIS family includes the guard-fish, the skipper or saury pike 

 and the flying fishes. In these fishes there is a single dorsal fin 

 far back, opposite the ventral : behind these there are in the 

 skipper or saury pike a row of five or six finlets as in the mack- 

 erel. The pelvic fins are placed far back, as in herring, salmon, 

 &c., but the air-bladder has no connection with the gut. In 

 both garfish and saury pike the jaws are prolonged into a narrow 

 slender beak, longer in the former than in the latter. The teeth 

 are larger in the garfish. It is a peculiarity of the garfish that 

 its bones are green, retaining this colour when cooked. In the 

 flying fishes (species of Exoccetus) the jaws are short, but the 

 pectoral or breast fins are very much elongated and enable the 

 fish to sustain short flights in the air. The flying fishes belong 

 to the tropics and the open ocean, but one or two specimens 

 have been obtained on the south coast of England. 



The garfish regularly visits the British coast, as well as Ire- 

 land and the Orkneys and Shetland in summer, migrating to 

 the more distant sea in winter. It is found from Iceland and 

 Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. 



Along the south coast the fish spawns in May and June, 

 and is then often taken in mackerel nets. It has long been 

 known that its eggs are provided with long threads or processes 

 at two opposite points, and these threads are adhesive. But the 

 eggs have never been found after being shed in the natural 

 condition, and it seems uncertain whether they develop at the 

 bottom or float about in bunches formed of a number of eggs 

 sticking together by the threads. Day states that he received 

 from Mr. Dunn a portion of a mackerel net with many eggs of 

 the garfish attached to it, eggs which had been shed by hsh 

 caught in the net. But it may be that the fish deposits its eggs 



