142 SALT-WATER FISHES 



any other support with which they come in contact. It 

 does not appear that, at any rate as recently as 1897, the eggs 

 have ever been obtained in the natural state, so that much 

 of this surmised function of the filaments, as well as any 

 statement as to the egg probably hatching out at either the 

 surface or bottom of the sea, must obviously be conjecture, 

 even if based on analogy with the habits of kindred species 

 more closely observed in other seas. Scandinavian authors tell 

 us circumstantially enough, however, that the fish spawns close 

 in shore in the spring months, April to June, and one of 

 them is of opinion that the eggs are deposited among the 

 weeds, since the fish is always caught among weeds during the 

 spawning-time. 



The young gar-fish is, in its early developments, as inter- 

 esting as the egg, for the " beak " is an acquisition of a later 

 stage, and in the young fish we find the ordinary jaws of any 

 other teleostean form. Then the lower jaw begins to outgrow 

 the upper, and at one stage it is immensely the longer, the 

 discrepancy being far more conspicuous than in the adult. 

 There is a gar-fish in Australian waters, plentiful in Port 

 Jackson, and served up almost daily in the winter months 

 (May to September) in the Sydney hotels, that retains the great 

 disproportion between the jaws, but this belongs to a distinct 

 genus {Hemirhamphus), some species of which live up the 

 fresh-water creeks. Australians call these fish " half-beaks." 

 There are also interesting developments in the fins of our 

 species, but that of the jaws is more characteristic. Cunning- 

 ham mentions having found young gar-fish in ground-seines 

 in the Hamoaze (Plymouth) in September. They measured 

 4 in. or 5 in. in length, and were fully developed, and 

 Cunningham regards them as over a year old. The garfish 

 grows to about 3 ft. in length. 



The Saury Pike {Scomhresox saurus\ or Skipper, is not 

 unlike a small gar-fish, but may be distinguished by its deeper 

 blue (and less green) colour, also by the presence of finlets 



