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G ARP IKES. 
345 
esteemed as food. At certain times they approach the 
coast in shoals; and then they are sometimes taken in 
enormous quantities, thus being of great economical 
importance to man. Some of them also attain a con- 
siderable size. One species, the principal object of 
sport for the English garrison in Bermuda, is said to 
attain a length of 5 or 6 feet (15 — 18 dm.). They 
are pronounced fishes of prey, though they can swallow 
only comparatively small objects, such as small fishes, 
crustaceans and insects. “I have seen a Needle-fish",'’ 
says Stearns * 6 , “of fifteen or twenty inches length seize 
mullet and other fish fully one third of its own size, 
which often prove more than it can manage. They are 
sometimes washed ashore dead, with some spiny fish 
that was a little too large fixed in their throats.” Their 
voracity, however, renders the Garpikes real pests to 
other fishes, especially small fry. 
In a systematical respect the Garpikes like the 
following genus, are of special interest on account of 
their changes of growth. In the harbour of Polperro 
(Cornwall), in July, 1818, Couch 0 found a small fish, 
about an inch long, actively swimming about at the 
surface, which he took to be Linnasus’s Esox brasili- 
ensis, i. e., according to the system of modern times, 
a representative of Hemiramphus, a genus common in 
the tropic seas, with only the lower jaw elongated, the 
upper jaw forming a more or less nearly equilateral 
triangle. In August, 1837, on the other side of Eng- 
land, off the coast of Suffolk, Clarke' 7 also found a 
shoal of this fish, about two inches long, and supposed 
them to be the young of the common Garpike. This 
was also BehnV opinion of the large shoals of similar 
small fish, between 20 and 36 mm. long, which he 
found in Kiel Bay in June, 1842, and specimens of which 
were shown in the same year by Van dkr Hoeven at the 
Meeting of Scandinavian Naturalists in Stockholm '. Yar- 
reliA and Hornsciiuch 7 ', on the other hand, were of 
opinion that these young specimens were true Ilemi- 
ramphi, and that the fauna of Europe thus contained 
one 4 or even two- 7 species of this tropical genus. Valenci- 
ennes rejected this opinion, and unhesitatingly stated 7 
that “in early youth the Garpikes have a short beak, 
and the lower jaw is elongated before the upper jaw 
has reached its full development. Kuppell has made 
the same remark with regard to the Sauries ( Scomber - 
esox).” This was one of the first observations to give 
undisputable evidence of the natural development of 
these genera from one another. The Hemiramphi re- 
present the earlier stages of the development of the 
family; and the forms which occupy the more advanced 
stages of this course of development, the Garpikes and 
Sauries, pass through Hemiramph stages in their youth. 
The course of this development has subsequently been 
still further elucidated by Malm 7 and Lutken™. We 
have borrowed from the latter author the instructive 
figures which he lias appended to Iris description of 
the changes of the head during growth both in Scom- 
bresox and Bampliistoma 11 . In early youth (fig. 92, <<), 
while the length of the body is still less than 13 mm., 
both jaws are short, like those of the Flying-fish. In 
specimens 15 mm. long the lower jaw projects, with 
a protuberance, bent downwards, under the tip, while 
the upper jaw is still almost truncate or forms a broad 
obtuse angle. In specimens 25 mm. long the snout 
and lower jaw roughly present the appearance shown 
in fig. A in the woodcut, with the tip of the lower 
jaw bent downwards; and along the middle of the 
under surface of the lower jaw there hangs a dermal 
a This is the name given to the Garpike or Silver Garfish by the fishermen of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as those of Italy and Spain. 
6 Beown-Goode, Fish., Fish. Industr. U. >$., sect. I, p. 459. 
c Trans. Lin. Soc. Lond., vol. XIV, jaart. I, p. 85. 
d Yarr., Brit. Fish., ed. 2, vol. I, p. 451. 
e Tijdschr. v. Natuurl. Geseh., vol. X (1843), p. 5. 
f See the Proceedings of the Meeting, p. 648. 
0 Brit. Fish., 1. c. 
h Tijdschr. Nat. Gesch., 1. c., p. 296. 
1 Hemiramphus europceus, Yarr. 
■i Ilem. balticus, PIornscii., a name which V. d. PIoeven, however, proposed to exchange for Hem. Behnii. 
k Cuv., Val., Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. XIX, p. 6 — 1846. 
1 Gbgs Vet., Vitt. Sarnh. Hand]., Ny Tidsfoljd, Haft. 2 (1851), p. 106; Ofvers. Vet.-Akad. Forh. 1852, p. 230, tab. Ill, fig. 2; 
Ghgs, Boh. Fn ., p. 554. 
m Vid. Selsk. Skr. Kbhvn, 5:te Raekke, Naturv., Math. Afd., vol. XII, p. 564. 
n The Royal Museum has received an abundant supply of young specimens of Ramphistoma, between 15 and 60 mm. long, partly 
taken by Mr. C. A. Hansson in the neighbourhood of Stromstad and Dynekil, in the month of July, and partly from the Skager Rack, where, 
in July, 1879, the Expedition of the gunboat Gunliild found the young of this species at the surface in about 330 fathoms of water. 
Scandinavian Fishes. 
44 
