300 CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



(251.) The genus Ramphistoma, or gar-fish^ have but 

 a very slight connection, so far as their external form is 

 concerned, with the flying fish ; and yet there are some 

 points of anatomical coincidence, which, in the absence 

 of intermediate forms, bring them together. They are 

 long, narrow, and compressed fishes, at once known by 

 the excessive prolongation of their jaws, which in this re- 

 spect are precisely analogous to those of the sword-fish 

 (^XipMncE), which represent them, in fact, in the opposite 

 circle of the acanthopterygious or spine-rayed fishes. 

 Although not a numerous group, the gar-fish appear to 

 contain three or four sub-genera, — two of which, Ram- 

 phistoma, properly so called, and Scomheresox, occur on 

 the British coast. The first of these is the Esox belone 

 of Linnaeus, — a fish very often seen in the London mar- 

 kets in the spring, and remarkable for the beautiful 

 green colour of its bones : it seldom exceeds two feet 

 long. No ichthyologist seems yet to have been suc- 

 cessful in ascertaining the precise nature of its food, 

 although t^Lere can be no doubt, from the structure of 

 the teeth, that it devours small fish. Mr. Couch, who 

 has observed its habits, informs us*, that "^ it swims 

 near the surface at aU distances from land, and is not 

 unfrequently seen to spring out of its element; its 

 vivacity being such that it wiU for a long time play about 

 a floating straw, and leap over it many times in succes- 

 sion. When it has taken the hook, it mounts to the 

 surface, often before the fisherman has felt the bite ; 

 and there, with its slender body half out of water, it 

 struggles, with the most violent contortions, to escape : 

 when newly taken it emits a strong smell." The gar-fish 

 seem widely dispersed^ for they occur in the Atlantic 

 and in Tropical India ; but we found no species in the 

 Mediterranean. Of the sub-genus Scomleresox, also, 

 only one species is British : it chiefly differs from the 

 last in having the hinder portion of the dorsal and anal 

 fins divided into those finlets which are so conspicuous 



* Yarrell's Fishes, vol. i. p. 392. 



