82 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



used for this purpose in the islands of the Pacific. The fruit is 

 pounded into a paste, inclosed in a bag, and kept over night. The 

 time of an especially low tide is selected, and bags of the pounded 

 fruit are taken out on the reef the next morning and sunk in certain 

 deep holes in the reef. The fish soon appear at the surface, some of 

 them lifeless, others attempting to swim, or faintly struggling with 

 their ventral side uppermost. The natives scoop them up in nets, 

 spear them, or jump overboard and catch them in their hands, some- 

 times even diving for them. Nothing more striking could be imagined 

 than the picture presented by the conglomeration of strange shapes 

 and bright colors snake-like sea eels (Ophicthus, Muraena, and 

 Echidna); voracious lizard-fishes (Sy nodus); gar-like hound-fishes 

 (Tylosurus), with their jaws prolonged into a sharp beak; half-beaks 

 (Hemiramphus), with the lower jaw projecting like an awl and the 

 upper one having the appearance of being broken off; long-snouted 

 trumpet-fishes (Fistularia); flounders (Platophryspavo)', porcupine-fish 

 (Diodonhy strive), bristling with spines; mullets of several kinds (Mugil), 

 highly esteemed as food-fishes; pike-like Sphyraenas; squirrel fishes 

 (Holocentrus) of the brightest and most beautiful colors scarlet, rose- 

 color and silver, and yellow and blue; surmullets (Upcneus and Pseud- 

 npeH<nw) of various shades of yellow, marked with bluish lines from the 

 eye to the snout; parrot-fishes (Scarus), with large scales, parrot-like 

 beaks, and intense colors, some of them a deep greenish blue, others 

 looking as though painted with blue and pink opaque colors; variega- 

 ted Chaetodons, called " sea butterflies" by the natives; black-and- 

 yellow banded banner-fish (Zanclus canescens)', trunkfishes (Ostracion), 

 with horns and armor; gaily striped lancet fish (Teuthis lineatus) 

 called Idyug; leopard-spotted groupers (Epinephelus hexagonatus), 

 like the cabrillas of the Peruvian coast; cardinal-fishes (Apogon fascia- 

 tn#) striped from head to tail with bands of black and flesh color; 

 hideous-looking, warty toadfishes, "nufu" armed with poisonous 

 spines, much dreaded by the natives; and a black fish (Monoceros mar- 

 ginatm), with a spur on its forehead. 



As many young fish unfit for food arc destroyed by this process, 

 the Spanish Government forbade this method of fishing; but since the 

 American occupation of the island the practice has been revived. 



Jn the mangrove swamps when the tide is low hundreds of little 

 fishes with protruding eyes may be seen hopping about in the mud and 

 climbing among the roots of the Rhizophora and Bruguiera. These 

 are the widely spread P&riophthalmus koelreuteri, belonging to a 

 group of fishes interesting from the fact that their air-bladder has 

 assumed in a measure the function of lungs, enabling the animal to 

 breathe atmospheric air. 



Following I give a list of some of the Guam fishes arranged accord- 

 ing to their vernacular names: 



