148 



GARFISH. 



used as bait. Perhaps the strong and disagreeable smell that 

 proceeds from it when newly caught, may be the reason of its 

 being little regarded for the tabic. 



This fish attains the length of about thirty inches, but the 

 example described measured only twenty inches, and the greatest 

 depth, which was at the ventral fins, an inch and a half. The 

 jaws protrude beyond the eyes three inches and a half; upper 

 jaw more slender than the lower, and not quite so long. The 

 two branches forming the lower jaw are united by bone, which 

 is crossed with rough bony bars; and the upper jaw is equally 

 united into one, but without bars. Two rows of teeth in the 

 upper jaw, of which the inner row is much the most prominent; 

 in the lower jaw a single row. In the mouth a fleshy pad in 

 front of the tongue, which with the remarkable structure of 

 the nostril, in a pit, with a free fleshy process and large 

 nerves passing thither, shew it to be of quick sensation after 

 prey. Eye large; upper part of the head hard and bony. 

 Body moderately compressed, with scales, and a ridge of them 

 of peculiar form passing along each side of the belly through 

 the whole length; acting as a point of support for muscular 

 effort. The body becomes more slender opposite the dorsal and 

 anal fins, which are far behind and opposite each other; more 

 expanded at their origin, and ending short of the tail, which 

 is forked. Pectoral fin short, upper rays longest; ventrals 

 distant before the vent and front of the anal fin. The colour 

 brilliant blue on the back, slight tints of blue on the fins, all 

 besides brilliant white. 



The articulation of the jaws is characteristic. The upper jaw 

 is joined to the frontal bone by a strong ligament, which admits 

 of free motion. A process of this upper jaw also passes down 

 to the angle of the mouth; being covered by a mystache formed 

 of a bone corresponding to what anatomists term the os unguis. 

 The interior part of this process is joined by a ligament to the 

 raised edge of the lower jaw; this ligament also admits of free 

 motion. But the proper articulation of the under jaw is below 

 the eye, to what from that circumstance perhaps may be called 

 the temporal bone, but which is the first or lowest gill-cover. 

 The effect of this structure is, that the depressing action of the 

 lower jaw is the cause of the lifting of the upper jaw; and 

 that, too, to a greater extent than the lower, by a kind of 



