■318 NEW YORK STATE MUSEiUM 



I'ylpsurus marinus Joedan & Fobdice, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 351. 1886; 

 Bean, Bull. U. S. F. 0. VII, 146, 1888; 19tli Kept. Commrs. Fisb. 

 N. Y. 273, 1890; Fishes Penna. 97, 1893; Jordan & Evermann, Bull. 

 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 714, 1896; Mearns, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 

 X, 318, 1808; Bean, 52d Ann. Kept. N. Y. State Mus. 99, 1900. 



Body long, slender and somewhat compressed. The depth of 

 the body is less than one fifth of length of head; the eye is 

 rather large, two fifths of the length of the postorbital part of 

 the head. The pectoral is as long as the postorbital part of 

 the head and twice as long as the ventral. The distance of the 

 dorsal from the root of the caudal is one fourth its distance 

 from the tip of the lower jaw. The anal ends under the end of 

 the dorsal and begins in advance of the dorsal origin. The ven- 

 tral is almost equidistant from the root of the caudal and the 

 liind margin of the eye. D. 15 to 16; A. 15 to 17; V. 6. 



The body is green with a broad silvery band along the sides 

 and a dark bar on the operculum. The scales and bones are 

 ^reen. 



The silver gar, also called soft gar, billfish and needlefish, is 

 found along our coast from Maine to Texas, and, though a 

 marine species, it ascends rivers far above the limits of tides. 

 It has been found in the Susquehanna river at Bainbridge Pa., 

 and it also runs up the Delaware, the Hudson and other rivers. 



Schopff is authority for the names sea pike and sea snipe for 

 this species at New York. Mitchill refers to it as th? long-jawed 

 tresh-water pike, and also as the billfish, a name stillin use in 

 various localities for this fish. Billed eel is the name used in 

 Great South bay. DeKay calls it the banded garfish. Still 

 another name used for the species is needlefish; and it is said 

 that gar is derived from a Saxon word meaning needle. 



The species is found on our coast from Maine to the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Mearns has found it in the Hudson and its estuaries in 

 autumn. Mitchill observed it so frequently in that river that 

 he considered it an inhabitant of fresh water. In Gravesend 

 "bay the fish occurs from June to September. In Shinnecock 

 bay, Mecox ba^^ and Great South bay the writer collected it 

 almost everywhere. 



