. The American natural history; a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America. Natural history. THE SAWFISH 315 waters, but they are not common, and the real home of the genus is in the tropics and sub tropics. The Sawfish,^ of the Florida coast, and many portions of the tropics farther south, is celebrated among fishes because of the very long, flat beak of bone which projects forward from its snout, armed on both sides with formidable teeth. The length of this saw is more than one-third the length of. SHAEK-EAY. the head, body and tail. It is, we may safely assert,
. The American natural history; a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America. Natural history. THE SAWFISH 315 waters, but they are not common, and the real home of the genus is in the tropics and sub tropics. The Sawfish,^ of the Florida coast, and many portions of the tropics farther south, is celebrated among fishes because of the very long, flat beak of bone which projects forward from its snout, armed on both sides with formidable teeth. The length of this saw is more than one-third the length of. SHAEK-EAY. the head, body and tail. It is, we may safely assert, strictly a weapon of defence, not offence; for unless it is used as a shovel in searching for mollusks and other food on the bottom of the sea, it is useless in the search for food. When the Sawfish is threatened with attack, however, it defends itself by quickly curving sidewise, thereby giving a sweeping sidewise stroke with its saw, and swiftly repeating it in the opposite direction. On a Sawfish 14 feet in length, the saw is about 4}^ feet long, and the teeth project about \}/2 inches from the bone. This creature is an intermediate form between the sharks ^ Pris'tis pec-ti-na' Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Hornaday, William Temple, 1854-1937. New York, C. Scribner's Sons
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookp, booksubjectnaturalhistory
