120 ZOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
SAND SHARKS AND DOGFISH, CAUGHT IN SANDY HOOK BAY 
Photographed by Elwin R. Sanborn 
voracious fish, which has been called “the fresh- 
water counterpart of the shark.” Among fresh- 
water fishes it rivals the sturgeon in size. Its 
formidable jaws are armed with dangerous teeth. 
We have before us the personal letter of a bather 
in a Louisiana lake whose arm was seized and 
badly lacerated by a garfish. Its voraciousness 
and destructiveness to other fishes is well known. 
It is a plague and a pest to all interested in the 
fisheries. The giant gar is not only armed for 
offense, but is heavily armored for defense, its 
body being completely 
protected by hard 
rhombic plates—ichthyologists do not describe 
them as scales. The giant garfish is one of the 
few survivors of the extinct ganoids of Eocene 
It inhabits the middle and lower Mis- 
sissippi River and streams flowing into the Gulf 
of Mexico. 
times. 
Our specimens refused to take food for several 
weeks, but are now feeding freely. They no 
longer insist on live fish, but are willing to eat 
It is to be hoped that they will 
prove as hardy in captivity as the small northern 
dead ones. 
ears (Lepisosteus osseus ) which have lived in 
the Aquarium twenty years. Should they keep 
on growing and give promise of reaching giant 
size, the Aquarium will have an exhibit that will 
increase in interest as time passes. 
Last November the writer participated in the 
capture of the first lot of gars donated by Mr. 
Whiton, which were also taken in Lake Calea- 
A heavy 400-foot seine was used and over 
forty gars were taken in a few days, the largest 
The fishes were placed in 
sieu. 
being six feet long. 
seven wooden tanks, each eight feet in length, 
and loaded on a barge which was towed through 
the Intercoastal Canal from Lake Calcasieu te 
Sabine, Texas. From this point the Union Sul- 
phur Company’s steamer Hewitt brought them 
to New York. 
The census of the Alaska fur seal 
taken by the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries in 
August 1920, shows that the herd has now in- 
creased to nearly 550,000 animals. 
herd as 
The annual attendance of the Aquarium, which 
dropped during the war to less than a million 
and a half, is now returning to the pre-war 
figure of over two millions. The number of visi- 
tors to November 1, 1920, was 1,741,858. 
