148 
GARFISH. 
used as bait. Perhaps the strong and disagreeable smell that 
proceeds from it when newly caught, may be the reason of its 
being little regarded for the table. 
This fish attains the length of about thirty inches, but the 
example described measured only twenty inches, and the greatest 
depth, which was at the ventral fins, an inch and a half. The 
jaws protrude beyond the eyes three inches and a half; upper 
jaw more slender than the lower, and not quite so long. The 
two branches forming the lower jaw are united by bone, which 
is crossed with rough bony bars; and the upper jaw is equally 
united into one, but without bars. Two rows of teeth in the 
upper jaw, of which the inner row is much the most prominent; 
in the lower jaw a single row. In the mouth a fleshy pad in 
front of the tongue, which with the remarkable structure of 
the nostril, in a pit, with a free fleshy process and large 
nerves passing thither, shew it to be of quick sensation after 
prey. Eye large; upper part of the head hard and bony. 
Body moderately compressed, with scales, and a ridge of them 
of peculiar form passing along each side of the belly through 
the whole length; acting as a point of support for muscular 
eflbrt. The body becomes more slender opposite the dorsal and 
anal fins, which are far behind and opposite each other; more 
expanded at their origin, and ending short of the tail, which 
is forked. Pectoral fin short, upper rays longest; ventrals 
distant before the vent and front of the anal fin. The colour 
brilliant blue on the back, slight tints of blue on the fins, all 
besides brilliant white. 
The articulation of the jaws is characteristic. The upper jaw 
is joined to the frontal bone by a strong ligament, which admits 
of free motion. A process of this upper jaw also passes down 
to the angle of the mouth; being covered by a mystache formed 
of a bone corresponding to what anatomists term the os unguis. 
The interior part of this process is joined by a ligament to the 
raised edge of the lower jaw; this ligament also admits of free 
motion. But the proper articulation of the under jaw is below 
the eye, to what from that circumstance perhaps may be called 
the temporal bone, but which is the first or lowest gill-cover. 
The eflect of this structure is, that the depressing action of the 
lower jaw is the cause of the lifting of the upper jaw; and 
that, too, to a greater extent than the lower, by a kind of 
