0ARPIKE8. 
153 
ton is solid and bony. These are the garpikes and mud- 
fish. 
The garpikes (Fig. 197) have hirge mouths and large, 
conical, sharj) teeth, and the body is encased in an enamelled 
coat of mail. They are the terror of the Mississippi River 
and its branches, as they destroy all the smaller fish. The 
largest species is the alligator gar {Lepidosteus spatula). 
Fig. \^Q.—Protopterus annectens, a Lung-fish of Africa. One third natural 
size. 
which is sometimes nearly three yards (three metres) in 
length, and sometimes weighing several hundred pounds. 
So hard is its armor, that a blow with an axe cannot pene- 
trate its back, the only vulnerable point being its throat or 
the back of its head. It inhabits the lower Mississippi and 
the stagnant bayous and sluggish streams entering it. The 
Fig. 197.- Garpike. 
spawn resembles that of the toad, forming long ropes sev- 
eral inches in diameter, which are hung on old snags or 
roots. The eggs are laid in December and January, the 
young appearing in the spring, becoming fourteen inches 
long by the end of August.* 
* See an interesting account of this remarkable fish, by G. P. Dun- 
bar, in the American Naturalist for May, 1882. 
