12 THETARPON 



for when it is no longer young, its meat would 

 prove tough and fit only for porters. ' ' 



Dr. Theodore Gill, one of the great authorities on 



Ichthyology, in his article ' ' The Tarpon and Lady Fish 



and their Eelatives" published by the Smithsonian 



Institute in Vol. 48 of its Miscellaneous Collection says : 



' ' The tarpon has an elongated fusiform shape ; 



the forehead is slightly incurved (rather than 



straight) to the snout; the chin projects and is 



obliquely truncated; the dorsal (with twelve rays) 



is on the posterior half of the body nearly midway 



between the ventrals and anal; its free margin is 



very sloping and incurved and its long hind ray 



reaches nearly to the vertical of the anal ; the anal 



(with twenty rays) is about twice as long as the 



dorsal and falciform; the caudal fin has a very 



wide V-shaped emargination. The scales are in 



about forty -two oblique rows." 



The late Dr. Charles F. Holder, the noted angler, 

 gave a more simple and colloquial description in his 

 "Big Game Fishes of the United States" a book which 

 should be in the library of every sea-angler. He says : 

 "In appearance the tarpon is long, slender and 

 thin or compressed — the typical herring type. Its 

 mouth is enormous and strikingly oblique and 

 when open, the gill covers expanded, showing the 

 blood red gills, as often seen when leaping, it pre- 

 sents an extraordinary grotesque, even cynical 

 appearance. The lower jaw is very prominent, 

 suggestive of a determination not to be caught ; the 



