June 4, 1891.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



891 



ON THE TEETH OF FISHES 



AS A G-UIDE TO THEIR FOOD HABITS. 



BY r>E. JAMES A. HENSHALL. 



fteatl at the meeting of the American Fisheries Society, at Wash- 

 ton, D. O., May »7, 1801. 



THE food of fishes is either vegetable or animal, as in 

 the case of all other vertebrates. When vegetable 

 it, of course, consists of alga', while the animal food may 

 be batrachians, fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, insects and 

 their larvae, etc. 



A fish's diet may be restricted t® but one of these 

 various articles, or it may go through the entire bill of 

 fare like a Christian; but the general character of the 

 food of a fish toay usually be determined by the structure 

 and position of its teeth, so that an examination of the 

 teeth of a fish will indicate whether it is herbivorous, car- 

 nivorous or omnivorous. 



The teeth of most fishes, when they exist in the mouth, 

 may be in patches or bands of equal teeth and may be 

 either villiform or brush-like, setiform or bristle-like, 

 cardiform or card-like, rasp-like, or they may be of un- 

 equal size and sharp and conical, compressed or lancet- 

 shaped, or blunt, broad or truncated, molar-like, canine, 

 incisors, etc. The teeth may be situated on the Jaws, 

 vomer, palatines, pterygoids, tongue and gill-arclies, or 

 the mouth may be entirely toothless, and the teeth con- 

 fined to the pharyngeal bones of the throat, or they may 

 exist in the oesophagus or gullet. 



Fishes with unequal, sharp, conical or canine teeth are 

 piscivorous and feed upon small fishes which they swal- 

 low whole; and those with lancet-shaped teeth, while 

 also piecivorous, cut or lacerate their prey before swal- 

 lowing it. Fishes with pavements of molar-like teeth 

 feed upon crustaceans and mollusks, while those Avith 

 toothless jaws are herbivorous, or if carnivorous, feed 

 upon minute animal organisms, and are in no sense^ pis- 

 civorous. 



Beginning with the toothless fishes, that is, with no 

 teeth in the mouth, are the minnows (Cyprinidm), and 

 suckers {Catostoi)ddce)\ they are both herbivorous and 

 carnivorous. All of the minnows with intestines several 

 times larger than their bodies feed principally upon 

 vegetable matter, and the others upon insects and their 

 larvffi and minute crustaceans (Entdmostraca). Minnows 

 have a few very small pharyngeal teeth, with or without 

 grindiug surfaces. Those having teeth with grinding 

 surfaces are herbivorous, and those without these masti- 

 catory surfaces are carnivorous. The pharyngeal teeth 

 of the suckers are larger and more numerous than in the 

 minnows, and may be sharp or more or less truncated. 

 They feed upon vegetable matter and micro-organisms 

 extracted from the mud, and some of them on thin-shelled, 

 minute mollusks. 



The larger toothless fishes, as the sturgeons, whiteflsh, 

 mullet, etc., feed upon minute animal organisms, mostly 

 crustaceans. Some of the large toothless fishes, as the 

 ehovel-nosed sturgeon, paddle-fish and sawfish, have the 

 snout prolonged into organs for stirring up the mud or 

 sand of the bottom in order to obtain the small animal 

 forms upon which they feed. The paddle-fish has the gill- 

 rakers developed into a beautiful straining apparatus for 

 securing these minute creatures. The saw of- the saw- 

 fish is not used, as has been frequently asserted, as a 

 weapon for disabling its prey for food, though it is used 

 as a weapon of defense. Its use in jorocuring food is by 

 stirring up the mud or sand of the bottom, and its food, 

 as Ln the case of the paddle-fish and shovel- nosed sturgeon, 

 is composed of small forms. I have frequently observed 

 schools of half -grown sawfishes feeding in shallow water 

 by raking the bottom with their saws, which are well 

 fitted for this purpose. Their food seemed to be princi- 

 pally small crustaceans and mollusks. 



Fishes with small, feeble, sub-equal teeth, as the her- 

 rings {Clupeidai), anchovies {Engraididoi), silversides 

 (Atherinidce), etc., as we might imagine feed upon minute 

 or microscopic invertebrate forms, mostly crustaceans, 

 which exist in countless myriads in fresh and salt water. 



Fishes with bands or patches of villiform or brash-like 

 teeth, as the sunfishes {Centrarchidai), catfislies (Siluridce), 

 strij)ed basses {Labracinoi), etc., feed principally on crus- 

 taceans, as crasvfish, crabs, shrimps, etc., insects and 

 occasionally small fishes. The black bass is not, as popu- 

 larly supposed, a piscivorous fish— indeed, not so much so 

 as the brook trout, which has stronger, sharper, and more 

 unequal teeth. The principal food of the black bass is 

 crawfish, as the shrimp, squid and crab is of the striped 

 bass, though neither fish will object to a minnow, if it 

 can catch it, when hungry. The minnow is a good bait 

 for the black bass, as the menhaden is for the striped 

 bass, but it must not be surmised from this fact that they 

 are piscivorous in their habits. 



A minnow on a hook is in a disabled condition and 

 cannot escape, and most fishes will take it under these 

 conditions, whereas if it was free it would easily get 

 away. Fishes have been found in the stomach of stur- 

 geons, but that is no indication that it is piscivorous, 

 which it could not be vrith its toothless jaws and sucker- 

 like mouth entirely below the projecting snout; but find- 

 ing a disabled or dead fish on the bottom, it swallows it. 

 So, whenever the black bass, striped bass, white perch, 

 or the catfishes, or any fish with brush-like teeth finds a 

 disabled fish of suitable size, on a hook or otherwise, it is 

 taken in. I have demonstrated this fact time and again 

 by dropping a hook baited with a minnow in the midst of 

 a school of similar fishes, when it would be singled out 

 and seized by a larger fish which had failed to notice 

 those that were free. 



I cannot refrain from saying, in this connection, that 

 the black bass has been greatly misrepresented and un- 

 justly maligned and grossly abused as a piscivorous fish, 

 and often by those who ought to have known better. It 

 has been accused of depopulating rivers of young shad 

 that have been planted in them, while the striped bass 

 of the same waters have escaped such imputation. It has 

 been charged with the destruction of brook trout in cer- 

 tain waters, while the catfishes have not had a word raised 

 against them. But happily the charges have been proven 

 false, and the black basslhas been acknowledged to be not 

 BO black as it has been painted. I lately saw a statement 

 in public print from the superintendent of a fish hatchery 

 that the pike-perch {Stizostedion viireum) was not so 

 voracious or destructive to other fish as the black bass or 

 zaasQalonge! Comment is unnecessary, 



I found this prejudice existing in England, and the op- 

 position to the introduction of the black bass into British 

 waters was very pronounced. Mr, Marston, of the Lon- 

 don Fishing Gazette, informed mei that the prejudice had 

 been imbibed from American writers and anglers, who, 

 in order to convince British anglers of the fine game 

 qualities of the black bass had unwittingly overdone the 

 matter and conveyed the impression that it was a more 

 voracious and piscivorous fish than their pike! I wish to 

 say right here that the reason of the failure to stock cer- 

 tain waters in England successfully with black bass is 

 that said waters were not suitable for the small-mouthed 

 bass — the kind experimented with. If the large-mouthed 

 species had been introduced I have no doubt but it would 

 have done well. It is eminently fitted for the sluggish , 

 grassy broads of England, and would not be so destruc- 

 tive to other fishes as their perch, not to mention their 

 pike. We have in America thousands of small lakes, 

 many of them without inlet or outlet, where the black 

 bass has existed from time immemorial with the pike, 

 pickerel, perch, sunfishes, suckers, ciscoes, and even 

 brook trout without detriment to either of these species — 

 indeed, if any species suffers it is always the black bass. 



The piscivorous fishes which swallow their jirey whole 

 are those with cardiform teeth, as the pickerel, or with 

 sharp or conical teeth, as the dogfish {Amia calva) of 

 fresh watei-s, or with canine teeth, as the mascalonge, 

 barracuda, pike-perch, snappers, weakfish, etc. A.11 

 fishes with unequal, sharp, conical or canine teeth may 

 with certainty be pronounced entirely piecivorous in 

 their habits, feeding principally or entirely upon small 

 or young fishes or which are small enough to be swal- 

 lowed whole. Sometimes, however, their eyes prove to 

 be larger than their stomachs and they perish in the at- 

 temp to swallow a fish many sizes too large for their 

 capacity. 



Fishes with lancet-shaped teeth, as the kingftsh, mack- 

 erel and Spanish mackerel, or with strong compressed 

 teeth, as the bluefish, are entirely piscivorous, but bite, 

 cut or lacerate their prey before swallowing it. The 

 teeth of such fishes are miniature shark teeth and they 

 are equally as destructive to their smaller congeners. 



Fishes with prolonged or produced jaws, armed with 

 strong, sharp, unequal teeth, as the marine and fresh- 

 water garfishes, morays, etc., are also wholly piscivor- 

 ous. 



Fishes with incisor teeth, as the sheep^head, pinfish 

 {L. rhomboides), Fcup, etc., have also molar-like teeth, 

 and feed on crabs, shrimp or mollusks, and are not at all 

 piscivorous. By the aid of its humau-like incisors the 

 sheepshead can readily remove barnacles and other mol- 

 lusks from rocks, timbers, etc., and crush them with its 

 powerful molars. 



The drumfish (P. chromis), and the fresh-water drum 

 (A. grunniens), have villiform teeth on the jaws, but a 

 strong pavement of rounded teeth in the throat for crush- 

 ing the shells of mollusks, which is their principal food — 

 though as might be judged from their villiform teeth, 

 they occasionally swallow small fishes and crustaceans. 



Thus, by observing the character and position of the 

 teeth of fishes we have a sure and certain indication of 

 the character of their food, that is, of their principal and 

 natural food. Of course there will be exceptions, but 

 they only prove the rule. A herbivorous fish will occasion- 

 ally swallow animal food, while carnivorous fish will 

 sometimes swallow vegetable matter. A fish that lives 

 mostly on crustaceans, may consume twenty-five per cent, 

 of fishes, and vice versa. They should be ^jud^ed, how- 

 ever, by what they feed on mostly and habitually, when 

 situated so that they can exercise their choice in the 

 matter, for change of environment may involve a change 

 of diet. The horse and dog may take kindly to sweet- 

 meats, occasionally, but the one returns to his oats and 

 the other to its vomit, notwithstanding, and it would be 

 foolish to magnify their vagaries into comfirmed habits. 



Does the Possum "Sull"?— Some time ago the editor 

 of the Forest and Stream asked about the word "suH" 

 as applied to the action of the possum. From this it is 

 clear that he was not "raised" in the South. Every boy 

 that hunts possum with the darkies knows that they 

 will "sull." The word is doubtless formed from the 

 adjective sullen. It is quite possible that some darky 

 originated it. But to be honest, I did not before know it 

 was not in Webster's dictionary. What else is one to 

 say? If a possum doesn't sull, what does he do? That 

 reminds me that "Lotor" says the naturalists have dis- 

 covered that this action is not voluntary, but that the 

 animal is simply paralyzed with fear. I wonder if those 

 naturalists ever saw him look out of the coi'ner of one 

 eye to see if the coast was clear for a scamper. I hardly 

 think the theory will '-wash," Why doesn't the Chicago 

 Possum Club take up these weighty questions anyhow, 

 and settle them once for all? — Aztec. 



Live Foxes.— Ogdensburg, JST. Y., May 30.— I inclose 

 the following clipping from the Ogdensburg Journal, 

 May 9. It shows that Mrs. Reynard is a good provider: 

 "Hon. D. Magone for some time past has been missing 

 some of his fancy-bred fowls from his farm near this 

 city, and Friday Messrs. John Ashwood and iSTapoleon 

 Baker went out with a hound to investigate into the 

 cause. The hound took the scent and led the hunters to 

 the hole of a fox, When they neared the hole a large 

 she fox emerged and was brought down by a shot by Mr. 

 Baker. They then dug into the nest and found feathers, 

 a Rouen duck partially eaten, a mink skin and other 

 evidences of depredations. Eight young foxes were 

 captured and Mr. Ashwood now has them in his posses- 

 sion." The young foxes are quite lively; the males in- 

 clined to be vicious, but the females quite gentle. Does 

 anybody want them? If so they can write to Mr. Baker, 

 who is quite a fox hunter. — New Gun. 



A White- Winged English Sparrow.— Kendallsville, 

 Ind., May 27.— While shooting some English sparrows 

 to-day I shot one with perfectly white wings. I saw one 

 a year ago like this one, but could not secure it. The 

 one that I shot to-day was a female and the other a male. 

 Have any of your readers secured any like these? — L. a! 



Tame Crow.— Sandusky, O., May 87.— I notice in the 

 last issue of Forest and Stream about Mr. Nielsen's pet 

 crow killing sparrows. Mr. Nielson tells me thac the 

 same pet crow sometimes follows him to the depot and 

 always finds the way home,— A. H. D, 



km^ ^ag mtd 0m(. 



The full texts of the game laws of all the States, Terri- 

 tories and British Provinces are given in the Booh of the 

 Oame Laws. 



A FATHER'S JOY. 



A FAE.1MER lived in the long ago, 

 I can't say .iust how long; 

 He had three sons who were his pride— 

 They all were stout and strong. 



He wished to see their cTaaracter 



Well formed without a blot, 

 But his ambit ion was to make 



Each boy an expert shot. 



His barn, just half a mile from home, 



He visited one day, 

 And in it saw a staring owl. 



Then made quick haste away, 



To tell his sons what he had seen 



On high up in the shed, 

 And that, with rifle charged with ball, 



The owl they would strike dead. 



Obedient to their sire's command. 



On to the barn they went, 

 And with unerring aim a hall 



Into the owl's brain sent. 



Exultant, with the bird of night 



In hand, to bless their sire; 

 One loolting back.in terror cried, 



The barn is all afire!" 



Back to the barn the trio ran 



To quench th' incipient flame; 

 Their efforts were of no avail. 



The barn to ashes came. 



Sadly went the boys to tell 



The ruin they had wrought 

 By firing of that little gun 



Their father's pride had bought. 



The father looked as they drew near; 



Upon his brow a scowl: 

 "I fear those boys won't 'mount to much, 



Eer they ain't got the owl." 



And ere inquiry he could make, 



One boy in anguish dire 

 Cried out„"Don't whip as, papa dear, 



We sot the barn afire!" 



"The barn burnt down? i Why how you talk; 



Well, that is pretty bad; 

 But that you missed the owl to me's 



A matter much more sad." 



"Nay, father, as the fellow sat 



A-winkin' overhead, 

 I took dead aim and dowu he came. 



Shot through and through the liead." 



"Well done, my boy!" the father cried. 



As joy beamed in his eye; 

 "The barn is burnt, but that is nought— 



You hit the owl, don't cry." N. D. Elting. 



INDIANS AND WILDFOWL. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I notice that there seems to be considerable speculation 

 among sportsmen as to the cause of the rapidly decreas- 

 ing flight of water fowl. They are, indeed, becoming 

 very scarce, as compared to former years, and I fear that 

 even were the shooting of them entirely prohibited in the 

 United States it would only defer their extinction for a 

 time. 



i learn from different half-breeds, who have been in the 

 far North, some to Slave Lake and beyond, that the dif- 

 ferent tribes in that northern region, the great breeding 

 ground for water fowl, now depend upon them in great 

 measure for their subsistence. As soon as these birds 

 arrive in the spring the natives resort to all sorts of means 

 to entrap them. They also gather vast quantities of eggs. 

 When the moulting season comes on, and the young 

 birds are nearly ready to fly, the great catch of the season 

 takes place. Each family then gathers ducks and geese 

 by the hundreds and dry them for winter use; and, 

 indeed, it is about the only food they have. While moose, 

 caribou and the wood bison were still plenty they had no 

 use for water fowl, of course; but now that the game has 

 become scarce they have to live upon that, as many of 

 the tribes receive little or no aid. from the Canadian 

 Grovernment. I am told that in the summer of 1889 great 

 fires destroyed the marsh grass where the water fowl 

 breed, and as a restdt the Indians got very few of them, 

 many persons dying the ensuing winter from starvation. 

 From this it seems that in spite of all game laws we may 

 enact for their preservation, the water fowl will soon have 

 gone the way of the buffalo. J. W. Sohultz. 



PiBGAN, Montana. 



For an Emergency on Bears. — Kentucky, May 28. 



In Forest and Stream of May 81, Mr. S. H. Greene says: 

 "It is true that I was armed with the best Parker and plenty 

 of shells loaded with duck shot, but some way I found my- 

 self wishing that he knew that I was only j ust a plain duck 

 hunter, and neither looking nor loaded for bar." Perhaps 

 Mr. Greene and others would like to know (if they do not 

 already know) how a duck load can be, in almost an instant, 

 ''loaded for bar." With a penknife cut the shell nearly 

 or quite off between the two top wads which are between 

 the powder and shot. The forced load gives a greater 

 penetration than a chambered solid ball will give. As a 

 test, I had some shells loaded with 3|dr. powder, l^oz. 

 No, lU shot, one card board and two felt wads on powder 

 and stiff card board on shot. I cut one of the shells as 

 described above, and knocked a round hole through an 

 inch and a half walnut plank door at 120yds. Quite a 

 desirable "load for bar." I do not advocate the use of the 

 cut shells except in cases of necessity, although I do not 

 think it injurious to even full-choked guns. The part of 

 the shell that is cutoff carries the shot all together, which 

 are held in by the wads in each end, as far as the gun 

 will shoot,— L. Yates. 



