10 FISHES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The general color is greenish, the sides silvery, and the belly whitish. Numerous 
round dark spots on the sides, most distinct posteriorly and most conspicuous in the 
young, becoming obscure with age. Very young individuals have a black lateral 
band. The fins are generally plain, with the exception of numerous dark spots. 
The specimen described, No. 36,098, United States Nat. Mus., from Stone’s R., 
Tenn., is twenty-four inches long. 
This is the common, long-nosed gar pike of the Great Lakes, the Mis- 
sissippi valley and the eastern states from Pennsylvania to South Car- 
olina. It ranges south to Mexico and west to the plains. Additional 
names for the species are bill-fish, sword-fish, bony gar, bony pike, alligator, 
alligator gar and buffalo-fish. Professor Cope recognizes two varieties 
of this gar in Pennsylvania. One of these abounds in the Susquehanna 
and the lower Delaware. He distinguishes it by its robust form, short 
face and gill covers, and the roughened scales of the front part of the 
body. The other variety occurs in lakes and in the Allegheny river, and 
is to be known by its slenderer face and gill covers, its smaller size, 
generally smooth scales, and the absence of dark spots on the body and 
fins. It should be remembered, however, that the species is extremely 
variable in these particulars, and all of the names based upon such char- 
acters have been generally discarded. 
The gar pike attains to a length of five or six feet, of which the head 
and snout usually form about one-third. 
This species is more abundant in the Great Lakes and large streams 
than in the small rivers. It is emphatically a fish of prey and extremely 
tenacious of life. It spawns in shoal water, or in the streams, in the 
late spring and early summer months. 
The gar pike is said to be nowhere used for food, because its flesh is 
tough, and is believed to be unwholesome. I have seen it, however, 
with the bill cut off and the skin removed, offered for sale in the market 
at Washington, D. C. 
10. Lepisosteus platystomus Rarrnesque. 
The Short-nosed Gar Pike. 
The short-nosed gar pike has an elongated body, its depth being contained seven 
and one-half times in the length; the length of the head is less than one-third length 
of body to tail. Distance from eye to tip of snout greater than from eye to posterior 
edge of opercle. Upper jaw slightly longer than the lower; both jaws with many 
long sharp teeth. Dorsal and anal fins placed far back, near the tail; ventrals in 
middle of length. 
D. 8; A. 9; about fifty-five rows of scales between head and caudal. Fins all more 
or less black spotted. The specimen described, No. 3241, United States National 
Museum, from Cleveland, Ohio, is twelve inches long. 
The short-nosed gar, because of its shorter snout, which even in young 
specimens does not much exceed the rest of the head in length, has been 
considered as representing a separate subgenus, Cylindrosteus of Rafin- 
esque. 
