80 FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



F. scrrata. Bloch. The Tobacco-pipe Fish. 



Although Richardson, in his " Fauna^^'' observes that the 

 " Fistularia tahaccaria frequents the coast of the United 

 States," it must be exceedingly rare in the waters which bor- 

 der New England ; as 1 have neither met with one myself, nor 

 heard of one's being seen by any individual whose accuracy 

 could be relied upon. Richardson also remarks, that the " F. 

 serrata frequents the West Indies and the sea of Brazil." 

 Cuvier, in the notes to his " Regne Animal,''^ refers to Cates- 

 by's plates for a figure of this species ; he could not infer, from 

 this figure, that the species was the " serrata" unless he had 

 also received a specimen of the fish, and concluded it was the 

 only Fistularia found upon the coast of the United States. 

 Catesby's figure is represented with two dorsal fins. 



The specimen before me was sent several years since to this 

 city by Dr. Yale, who procured it at Holmes Hole. It is still 

 in a state of fine preservation, and belongs to the cabinet of the 

 " Boston Society of Natural History." It has not the spots upon 

 its sides which are possessed by the tahaccaria : nor does it 

 agree with the figures of that species in Rees' Encyclopedia ; 

 Sonnini's Buffon ; Strack's Plates ; or Shaw's Zoology : but in 

 the fifth volume of Shaw's Zoology, the author observes, '■' a 

 variety has been described by Dr. Bloch, in which this part" 

 (referring to the tail) " was double, and the snout serrated." 

 A figure of the tail of this variety, as he calls it, is also repre- 

 sented by Shaw. This is undoubtedly our fish ; and, although 

 I have no means of ascertaining what the " serrata" is, having 

 neither Bloch nor any other work on ichthyology, which 

 speaks of it, yet, looking at its serrated intermaxillaries, and 

 lateral line, I have no doubt that the species before me is that 

 fish. Dr. Yale writes me it is not often found. 



My specimen is ten inches in length. Upper part of the 

 body, of a reddish brown color ; a narrow bluish band upon the 

 sides, through the centre of which, runs the lateral line which 

 commences just above the posterior portion of the operculum, 

 and runs obliquely backwards about an inch, then approximat- 



