12 THETARPON 



for when it is no longer young, its meat would 

 prove tough and fit only for porters. M 



Dr. Theodore Gill, one of the great authorities on 



Ichthyology, in his article "The Tarpon and Lady Fish 



and their Relatives" published by the Smithsonian 



Institute in Vol. 48 of its Miscellaneous Collection says : 



"The tarpon has an elongated fusiform shape; 



the forehead is slightly incurved (rather than 



straight) to the snout; the chin projects and is 



obliquely truncated; the dorsal (with twelve rays) 



is on the posterior half of the body nearly midway 



between the ventrals and anal; its free margin is 



very sloping and incurved and its long hind ray 



reaches nearly to the vertical of the anal ; the anal 



(with twenty rays) is about twice as long as the 



dorsal and falciform; the caudal fin has a very 



wide V-shaped emargination. The scales are in 



about forty-two oblique rows." 



The late Dr. Charles F. Holder, the noted angler, 

 gave a more simple and colloquial description in his 

 "Big Game Fishes of the United States" a book which 

 should be in the library of every sea-angler. He says : 

 "In appearance the tarpon is long, slender and 

 thin or compressed the typical herring type. Its 

 mouth is enormous and strikingly oblique and 

 when open, the gill covers expanded, showing the 

 blood red gills, as often seen when leaping, it pre- 

 sents an extraordinary grotesque, even cynical 

 appearance. The lower jaw is very prominent, 

 suggestive of a determination not to be caught ; the 



