EUROPEAN HAUFBEAJt. 
137 
probability to this supposition; but the question has been set 
at rest, first, by the discovery of the young of the Garfish of 
no larger growth than the smallest of the Halfbeaks referred 
to, but with the upper jaw of the fully proportioned length 
of the full-grown fish; and again by the discovery of an example 
of much larger, and we believe, adult growth, in which the 
disproportion in the length of the jaws was more decided than 
even in such examples as had before been met with. From 
this example also it will be seen how it happens that a fish, 
whose habit it is to keep at a distance from land, cannot have 
been taken in nets, the meshes of which are of the usual size 
for other fishes. 
It was on the 11th. of September, in the year 1847, that 
some driving boats were at the distance of four or five leagues 
from land, in weather inclined to be stormy, when a wave broke 
into one of them; and when the first rush of water had subsided, 
a fish was found to have been thrown on board, which was 
immediately wrapped in a piece of cloth; and it was brought 
to me as soon as the boat had reached the land. As regarded 
it there could not be a mistake, although this example differed 
in the length of tlm protruding jaw from such as I had seen 
before; and it is from this example that our figure and description 
are dei'ived; with the addition, as we have said, of some notes 
from others already referred to. 
The length was three inches and a half, the general figure 
slender, as represented in the plate; from the angle of the 
mouth to the point of the lower jaw one inch and about an 
eighth, which is a longer proportion than in other specimens 
I have seen, and in Mr. Yarrell’s figure of another of my own. 
The eye large and silvery; head fiat; angle of the mouth 
depressed, but the gape straight anteriorly; nostrils large, in a 
depression close in front of the eye; upper jaw short, pointed, 
with teeth along its length; lower jaw furnished with teeth 
only so far forwards as corresponds with those of the upper 
jaw; beyond this plain, without a furrow. The teeth are 
perpendicular to the jaws, straight, not very closely set, long 
for the size of the fish, but not of regular height. Lateral 
line straight. Colour of the back bluish, separated from the 
side by a defined line; side and belly silvery. Pectoral fins 
high on the side, somewhat lengthened and slender; in which 
VOL. IV. 
