CHAPTEK V. 



SAWFISH, RAYS, SHARKS, AND THEIR ALLIES, WITH 

 NOTES ON DEEP-SEA FISHES. 



( Elasmobranchii, vtv.) 

 GOOD many years ago there used to be in the town of 

 Key West, Florida, a remarkable old curiosity-shop, 

 that had a great fascination for me as a boy. The 

 man that kept it was a sort of a taxidermist in his 

 way, and in his musty old establishment there was a varied 

 collection of odds and ends of marine relics that greatly inter- 

 ested me. And, although that was over thirty years ago, my in- 

 stincts as a naturalist had been developing for several years 

 prior to the time mentioned, and I can very well remember how I 

 enjoyed being permitted to examine the various objects he had 

 stored away on his shelves, or heaped up about the place. There 

 were jaws of great sharks; quantities of shells and corals; 

 sea weeds, big starfishes, and dried crabs; the shells of turtles 

 and of spiny sea-urchins, and what not else. Among all this 

 bric-a-brac from the depths of the sea there were to be noticed 

 a score or more long, flat, oblong bones of an earthy color, with 

 sharp, outward-projecting teeth all along the sides at near and 

 somewhat irregular intervals. Some of these double-sawlike 

 looking affairs were over four feet long, while others ranged all 

 the way down until they came to be only a foot or more in length. 

 It Mas the source of no little wonderment to me, then, as to what 

 kind of an animal such an extraordinary weapon could possibly 

 belong, and I am quite sure now that were this remarkable tooth- 

 armed blade known only from a fossil one, and the remainder of 

 the animal not known, it would by no means be every one who 

 would suspect its having belonged to a fish. My Key West friend 

 seemed quite familiar with the subject, however, and soon told 

 me that it was the " saw " of the sawfish that excited my curios- 

 ity, and before I left Florida and Florida waters, doubtless I 

 would see a number of these fish alive. His prediction was in 

 part fulfilled, for upon one or two occasions, at least, I have had 

 the opportunity to study the sawfish in nature. They are not 

 uncommon upon the coasts of the peninsula, while in the inland 

 everglades they are said to be very numerous. One that I read 



