GARPIKE. 
351 
of the Flying-fish. “Sometimes,” says Krgyer", “it even 
happens that a Garpike leaps into a boat.” For a vo- 
racious fish, as we have stated above, the offensive and 
defensive weapons of the Garpike are of singular nature. 
Though both jaws are elongated, the lower jaw, with 
its soft and somewhat flexible tip, can scarcely serve 
under ordinary circumstances as a weapon of attack, a 
function which must rather belong to the upper jaw. 
Whether the Garpike is able to swallow the large fish, 
no smaller than itself, which it has sometimes been seen 
to attack, is as yet unknown. The fishermen declare 
that the Garpike sometimes engage in war among them- 
selves, and do not escape easily, as is shown by the 
scars on their bodies. Day states, on Mr. Dunn’s 
authority, that the latter once received a Mackerel that 
had been transfixed, just below the pectoral fin, by the 
beak of a Garpike, which had broken off short in the 
struggle. A similar occurrence is mentioned by Couch 6 . 
Mr. Clogg'’ tells us of a fisherman who met with much 
difficulty in taking a Salmon-peal from his net. On 
searching for the cause he saw what he supposed to lie 
the ends of a stick protruding on each side of the fish, 
but on extracting and examining it he found it to be 
the under jaw of a Garpike, known locally as a “long- 
nose.” “There can be no doubt,” he says, “the garfish 
attacked the peal, rushing on it with sufficient force to 
thrust the lower jaw completely through the peal, which 
must have broken off either by the force of the blow 
or by the struggles of each fish to free itself. The peal, 
which weighed nearly four pounds, was struck behind 
and just above the pectoral fin, the jaw of the garfish 
thus passing through the thickest part of the peal, re- 
quiring — if we compare the weight of a swordfish to 
that of a garfish — even greater velocity of attack in the 
latter to cause so great a penetration through a fish than 
it would in the former to penetrate many inches of 
oak-plank.” Just as it has been shown that the Sword- 
fish attacks objects that can do it neither good nor harm, 
and that it probably does so by mistake, it seems also 
likely that these accounts of the Garpike may be ex- 
plained in the same way. The Garpike, however, attacks 
its actual prey in the same manner, pierces it with one 
of its jaws and then shakes it loose, or seizes it between 
its jaws and worries it to death by means of the pow- 
erful movements of its head, or carries it for some 
time in its beak before devouring it. 
The food of the Garpike is composed chiefly of 
young Herrings, Sticklebacks and other small fishes, 
crustaceans and other minute marine animals. Couch 
found Herrings in its intestinal canal, Ekstrom a large 
quantity of Three-spinecl Sticklebacks and, still oftener, 
of Idotliea entomon, a Gammarid common in the Baltic. 
Lilljeborg found the stomach to contain small fishes and 
ants, Olsson^ small fishes, among them Sand-eels, and 
Gammarids, beetles and flies. The Garpike digests its 
food quickly, and in spite of the simplicity of its in- 
testinal canal extracts no small amount of nutriment 
from the food. The abdominal cavity is sometimes full 
of fat, though the flesh appears somewhat dry. 
The Garpike spawns in spring and the early part 
of summer, from April to June. The older fishes spawn 
first. At this period it approaches the coast b “In the 
middle of May,” says Ekstrom, “this fish begins to spawn 
in the island-belt of Morko. The males and females then 
ascend together in large shoals to spots along the coast 
where the water is shallow. I have never seen the roe 
of this fish in the water; but it is probably deposited 
on the weeds, for it is always on a weedy bottom that 
the Garpike is found during the spawning-season. The 
roe I have found on cutting open specimens ready to 
spawn, was fine and greenish yellow in colour.” Accord- 
ing to Benecke the eggs are from 3 to 37 2 mm. in 
diameter, the surface being covered with numerous hair- 
like filaments, some of them 1 cm. long, by means of 
which they anchor themselves in the manner Ave have 
described above. They develop so quickly, and the fry 
groAV so fast, that as early as August avc may find small 
Garpike 150 mm. long (Malm), and “during the sum- 
mer of 1837 Fries took a specimen 170 mm. long. In 
the Cattegat the Garpike stays close in shore for some 
time after the end of the spaAvning-season, to feast on 
Herring-fry and Sand-eels; but those that spaAvri in the 
a The same statement is made by Faber, Fisclie Islands , p. 156. 
Land and Water , 8th December, 1866. 
c Zoologist , vol. XXXII, Sept. 1874, p. 4160. 
d Lunds Uuiv. Arsskr. VIII, Afd. 3, No. 7, p. 6. 
e In most localities the Garpike heralds the approach of the Mackerel, which soon afterwards appear off the coast with the same 
object. In England it is locally known by the name of Mackerel-guide. 
According to Nilsson there is a fairly general superstition, in the south of Sweden at least, that when many Garpike are caught in 
spring, the summer will be very dry — and it is also believed, he says, that during the following year prices are always high. 
