380 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



any account of it beyond the bare mention of the 

 fact that such a fish existed, but there were many 

 careful drawings and accounts of the European 

 scarus, a smaller and less elegant creature inhabit- 

 ing the Mediterranean Sea, but since Mat went 

 fishing on William Street, the United States Gov- 

 ernment has printed numerous beautifully illus- 

 trated books of our fishes. 



The Wallace specimen came from Campeachy 

 Bay, Mexico, and was, when this was written, 

 owned by Mr. Blackford, of Fulton Market. It 

 measured, from tip of its beak to tip of its tail, 

 three feet one inch, and its greatest vertical width 

 was thirteen inches. In form the fish is not un- 

 like the common u sheepshead" ; its dorsal and cau- 

 dal fins terminate in long points, and the other fins 

 have the same tendency. There was no way of as- 

 certaining its weight, but when alive it could have 

 weighed not less than forty or fifty pounds. The 

 most striking peculiarity of this fish is its dental 

 anatomy. Its odd-looking mouth or beak is com- 

 posed of a bony structure of a bluish-green color, 

 excepting the teeth upon the cutting edge, which 

 are white and polished. These teeth, from the out- 

 side, have the appearance of being rather long 

 shingle shafts set edge to edge. Upon the inside, 

 however, their compound structure is at once de- 

 tected; the cutting edge of each jaw is composed 

 of about fourteen irregular scallops or undulations, 

 each of which is composed of about eight well-de- 

 fined teeth, with five or six very indistinct ones as 



