20 
FOREST AND STRE A'M 
January, 1921 
FINDING FISHES ON THE BEACH 
INTERESTING SPECIES OF FISH ARE FREQUENTLY WASHED ASHORE 
AND THERE IS AN EVER PRESENT POSSIBILITY OF SOME RARE FIND 
By JOHN T. NICHOLS 
F OR a naturalist a walk along the 
ocean shore is full of interest with 
the ever present possibility of 
some rare find. A number of fishes are 
scarcely known to science save from an 
occasional individual which has been 
cast upon the beach by old Ocean, and 
stumbled upon by someone competent to 
recognize its value. 
It is, of course, impossible to say what 
species will be encountered in a visit to 
the shore, but the pedestrian can read- 
ily familiarize himself with the few 
kinds which are most frequently washed 
up near New York City. Armed with 
this knowledge, he will be likely to rec- 
ognize anything that is unusual. 
Here is a small shark partially cov- 
ered with the drifted sand. Closer exam- 
ination shows it to be very slender, to 
have no pit or indentation at the root 
of the tail fin, above, and its small paved 
teeth, which are blunt, do not prick a 
finger inserted into its mouth. It is a 
smooth dogfish ( Mustelus canis), a very 
common species in our bays during the 
summer months. In winter it would 
probably have been the spined dogfish 
( Squalus acanthias) with a stout spine 
at the front of each of the two back fins. 
A little further along one stumbles on 
a skate. As would be suspected from 
their lack of regular scales, and mouth 
on the lower side of the head, skates are 
related to sharks. Their peculiar flat- 
tened form is an adaptation to lying 
concealed on the bottom. Three kinds 
are very commonly washed on the beach 
— the clear-nosed skate ( Raja eglante- 
ria), which occurs in summer, has a 
pointed snout, and a conspicuous trans- 
lucent area on either side of it, and is 
marked above with short dark lines; the 
common skate ( Raja erinacea) , most 
commonly washed up in fall and winter, 
though occurring at all seasons, has a 
broadly rounded snout, and is marked 
with roundish spots; and the big skate 
( Raja diaphcmes) , which is plentiful at 
the same time of the year, and reaches 
a length of three feet, bears a general 
resemblance to the latter. In order to 
determine with certainty which of these 
latter two one has found, it is sometimes 
necessary to cut out the jaws and count 
the series of teeth, about 50 in the 
common, and 90 in the big skate. 
O NE of the most usual skeletons to 
find washed up is that of the an- 
gler. Anglers grow to be several 
feet long and are a sluggish fish with 
large head and an enormous mouth. Al- 
though this fish generally lives under a 
considerable depth of water, large ones 
have a peculiar habit of swimming 
ashore to die in the fall of the year. 
Perhaps as a result, their bleached jaw 
bones, armed with many white, pointed, 
firmly set, dangerous-looking teeth are 
very frequent along the beaches. Such 
teeth are commonly mistaken for the 
teeth of sharks; but a shark’s tooth is 
quite different, flattened, and loosely at- 
tached, so as to be broken loose by the 
action of the water. The same action of 
the water, assisted, to what extent is 
uncertain, by the appetites of the sand 
fleas or amphipods, which swarm along 
the edge of the surf, and also assisted 
by the bleaching effect of the sun, fre- 
quently makes very beautiful skeletal 
preparations of fishes, in which each 
delicate shred of bone stands out clear 
and white. One not infrequently finds 
perfection in such natural fish skeletons 
which will be difficult to duplicate with 
the very best laboratory methods. 
Skeletons of herrings are not unusual 
but perhaps that of the silver lake or 
frostfish (Merluccius bilinearis) is most 
frequently found. The frostfish is a 
member of the cod tribe and has three 
separate fins on the back. It may be 
recognized by its large mouth with pro- 
jecting lower jaw, and numerous prom- 
inent sharp teeth. At times one finds 
many frostfish strewn all along the 
strand, only a yard or so apart. Per- 
haps they have ventured too close in 
after some small fry, and have been 
Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural 
History. 
Common skate from below 
tossed ashore by the breakers, or per- 
haps they themselves have come ashore 
in an effort to avoid the ravages of 
some still larger species. They are 
most frequently washed up in late fall 
and winter. 
A NOTHER codlike fish is frequently 
thrown on the beach in autumn, 
winter or spring with the frost- 
fish. This is the squirrel lake or ling. 
Though the ling’s mouth is large, its 
lower jaw is slightly included instead of 
projecting, that is, the tip does not quite 
reach that of the upper jaw. Its teeth 
are also smaller than those of the frost- 
fish. The fin on its back is divided into 
two parts, the most anterior pointed, tri- 
angular, with an elongate filament from 
the tip ; the posterior comparatively low 
and long, running almost the whole 
length of the back. The paired ventral 
fins are situated far forward near the 
throat and are long and very slender, 
each being little more than a double 
thread. Ling are large-eyed fishes nav- 
igating the dim lights near the bottom, 
dull brown in color. Their fry, which 
swim at the surface, are little fishes of 
an entirely different sort, brilliant silver 
except for a narrow dark back. In a 
southerly gale in late September I have 
picked them up washed ashore along the 
wave-line of the advancing tide, slightly 
over an inch, in total length. Superfici- 
ally they resembled the fry of the blue- 
fish of similar size, or of certain mul- 
lets. Their big silvery eyes were tinged 
with delicate blue. 
The sand lant or sand eel (Ammo- 
dytes americanus) is a small elongate 
silvery fish found in our waters 
throughout the year, which lives close to 
the shore, burying itself in the sand 
with great alacrity. It has a pointed 
head, low fin extending the entire length 
of the back and a forked tail fin. It is 
most abundant in fall and winter and at 
such times is sometimes washed ashore 
in great numbers to form wind-rows 
along the beach, — a rich harvest for the 
winter gulls. 
Drifted along high water mark speci- 
mens of the swellfish or blowfish ( Sphe - 
roides maculatus ) are frequent, the 
tough leathery skin and skeleton only 
remaining. When this is gone also and 
only the skull remains, the peculiar 
teeth form a ready means of identifica- 
tion. They consist of hard white nip- 
pers, shaped like the beak of some bird, 
divided along the medium line above and 
below so as to make four stony pieces. 
Whether it is that they are very fre- 
