FISHES OF CHESAPEAKE BAY 
151 
Spawning apparently takes place in the spring. During May, 1915, we took several large 
fish, with ripe roe, at Beaufort, N. C. The ovary in this species, as in the other members of gar- 
fishes, is single, and when fully distended with eggs it is fully one-third the total length of the body. 
The ripe ova are large, measuring about 3 millimeters in diameter. 
This gar attains a length of at least 3 feet. It is not common in Chesapeake Bay, but is occasion- 
ally seen in pound nets (in the meshes of which it becomes entangled by means of its long snout, 
large mouth, and sharp teeth) in the southern sections of the bay. This fish is of no commercial 
importance. 
Habitat . — Massachusetts to Brazil. 
Chesapeake localities. — (a) Previous records: None. (6) Specimens in collection or observed 
in field: Buckroe Beach, June 21, 1921; Cape Charles, September 23, 1921. 
Family XXXIV.-SCQMBERESOCIDtE. The sauries 
Body long, slender, compressed; both jaws prolonged in the adult, forming a slender beak; 
maxillary and premaxillary united; teeth feeble; gill rakers numerous, long, and slender; scales 
small, thin, deciduous; dorsal and anal low, similar, each with 4 to 6 detached finlets, as in the 
mackerels. A single genus and species comes within the scope of the present work. 
50. Genus SCOMBERESOX Lacepede. Sauries; Skippers 
Both jaws produced, forming a slender beak, the lower jaw the longer, the jaws short in the 
young; air bladder large; lateral line near ventral edge of body; scales small, partly covering the 
opercle. 
68. Scomberesox saurus (Walbaum). Skipper; “Northern billfish”; Saury. 
Esox saurus Walbaum, Artedi Genera Piscium, III, 1792, p. 93; Cornwall. 
Scomberesox scutellatus Uhler and Lugger, 1776, ed. I, p. 144; ed. II, p. 123. 
Scomberesox saurus Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 725, PI. CXVII, fig. 314. 
Head 3.5; depth 9 to 13; D. 10 or 11-V; A. 12 or 13-VI; scales about 115. Body elon- 
gate, compressed; head broad above, narrow below, tapering gradually to the very slender beak; 
snout longer than rest of head, proportionately shorter in young; lower jaw longer; eye about 3 
in postorbital part of head; air bladder large; scales small, about eight rows on upper part of 
opercle; dorsal and anal fins similar, small, and mainly opposite each other, each followed by 
five or six detached finlets; caudal fin forked; ventral fins small, inserted about equidistant from 
eye and base of caudal; pectoral fins shorter than postorbital part of eye. 
Color greenish brown above, sides and belly silvery; sides with a silvery lateral band about 
width of eye, bounding the darker color of the back. 
This species does not occur in the present collection. It is included in the present work on 
the basis of a record by Uhler and Lugger (1876, ed. I, p. 144, and ed. II, p. 123), who state that 
this fish is found very rarely near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. The foregoing description is 
compiled from published accounts. 
The skipper is primarily a fish of the open sea, where it travels in large schools and is preyed 
upon by mackerel, pollock, tunny, and other fish. It is a warm-water fish, and in the western 
Atlantic it probably lives largely between the latitudes of 11° and 40° N., in which region the 
young are very numerous. (Bigelow and Welsh, 1925, p. 166.) Its appearance along our imme- 
diate shores during the summer is very erratic, and in places where large catches may be made 
one year none at all will be taken the succeeding year. Although the skipper evidently occurs 
in the subtropical part of the open Atlantic it has not been reported south of Beaufort, N. C. Its 
center of abundance along our coast appears to be around Provincetown, Cape Cod, north and 
south of which it is uncommon. It is strictly pelagic, living exclusively at the surface. 
The skipper feeds on small pelagic Crustacea. Doctor Linton listed annelids, fragments of 
fish, vegetable debris, copepods, and crustacean larvae as the food of one specimen examined at 
Woods Hole. 
Spawning occurs in the open sea, probably at the surface. “The most interesting phase in 
the development of the skipper is that the jaws do not commence to elongate until the fry have 
