772 FISHES — LEPIDOSTEID^. 



attempt to take food, although I have frequently seen them basking in a 

 school of minnows, and have kept them in aquaria. 1 have never found 

 any fish in the stomach of the Gar, and out of eight examined by Prof. 

 Forbes, the stomachs of all but one were empty, that one containing a 

 single craw-fish. 



The fishermen generally have a great dislike for this fish, destroying 

 it without mercy when taken. Its flesh is said to be rank and tough, 

 and it is seldom or never used for food. Even " the dogs will not eat it", 

 say some writers, but the average dog prefers a beef-bone even to Trout 

 or Grayling. 



This fish is interesting to the comparative anatomist from its combin- 

 iug certain reptilian characters with the ordinary traits of fishes, and to 

 the geologist, as it is intimately connected with certain Ganoid groups now 

 extinct, and the study of its embryology, which no one has yet been able 

 fully to trace, is expected to throw much light on the relations of the 

 Ganoids to ordinary fishes and to Reptiles and Batrachia. The youngest 

 specimens now known have the caudal fin developed as a second dorsal 

 and anal, separated by a slender tail. 



Since the above was written, Prof. Alexander Agassizhas read a paper 

 before the National Academy of Sciences, detailing his recent studies of 

 the Embryology of this species. The following abstract of this paper is 

 from Science News, vol. i, pp. 19-20. 



"Some knowledge of the embryology of the Gar Pike (Lepidosteus) ha8 long been 

 needed, but no one has been able to raiae the young, until Mr. Agassiz succeeded in doing 

 so last summer. This fish is one of the few living survivors of those vast extinct orders 

 of geologic ages ; and it is thus especially important to compare its embryology with 

 that of modern fishes, in the hope of revealing more tuUy the structure of the fossil 

 races, and of throwing light upon modern questions of evolution. The Limulut, which 

 holds a similar position among the crabs, has had its embryology worked out by Pack- 

 ard, while Morse has studied the development of the brachiopods — an almost extinct 

 group of moUusks dating back to the early rocks. 



The Gar pike comes up the St. Lawrence in May, laying its eggs about the 20th, and 

 then disappears. The eggs are large, viscous, stick fast in an isolated way to whatever 

 they fall upon, and look much like those of toads, having a large outer membrane and 

 a small yolk. Mr. Agassiz sent his assistant, Mr. S. W. Garman, to obtain these eggs, 

 and also arranged to have a series collected at all stages of growth and preserved. Art- 

 ficial fecundation failed, but Mr. Garman brought to Cambridge about 500 natnrally-laid 

 eggs, of which all but 30 perished through mold. The young began to hatch in six days 

 and Mr. Agassiz began his examinations, the misfortune to the eggs precluding any 

 study previous to the birth of the young. Out of the 30 young hatched, 27 lived until 

 July 15th, when they were as old as those observed by Prof, Wilder. Mr. Agassiz found 

 that these little Gar Pikes were not so different from the young of the bony fishes as he 

 had expected ; the interesting development of the lung was not made out, but judging 

 by external characters the difterence is small. Connection with the Sharks appears in 



