Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/634

 622 GAR FISH GARIBALDI pike and Buffalo fish, attains a length of 5 ft. The color is umber brown on the back and head, the sides yellow, and the belly white ; there are circular black spots on the caudal, dorsal, and anal fins. It is found in Lakes Erie, Huron, and Champlain, the Ohio and its Gar Fish, or Gar Pike (Lepidosteus osseus). tributaries, and other western rivers. The great length of its jaws will distinguish it from other species ; it is often seen apparently sleep- ing on the surface, and gently carried round in an eddy for an hour at a time; it leaps often out of water in pursuit of its prey, and is so swift and strong a swimmer as to stem the most furious rapids. The alligator gar fish (L. ferox, Raf.) has a shorter head, the jaws form- ing not quite half the length, broad and flat above ; the skin is rough, the scales imbricated and sculptured; teeth numerous, strong, and prominent; the upper jaw, as in the preceding species, expanding into a knob at the end ; the color is yellowish brown. It inhabits the Mis- sissippi and Ohio rivers and their tributaries, and is usually from 4- to 6 ft. long ; according to Rafinesque, it attains a length of 12 ft., and is a match for an alligator ; its impervious coat of mail, strong teeth,' size, strength, and agility must make it a very formidable fish, though probably not superior to the equally well armed and powerful alligator. It may well be called the shark of fresh water, though not belonging to the placoid group of fishes. There are seve- ral other species described, more or less re- sembling the above; but these will serve to give an idea of the general characters of this singular fish, the living type of the dominant family of its class during the carboniferous pe- riod. The allied genus polypterm (Geoffr.), from the Nile, Senegal, and other African rivers, is characterized by similar enamelled scales, and by a number of finlets extending from the middle of the body to the tail ; the throat is covered with hard, nearly immovable plates, which would greatly embarrass respi- ration were it not for two openings on the top of the head, which answer the purpose of blow- holes and allow the water to pass through them; the lobes of the tail are of unequal size; the abdominal organs occupy a very small space, being packed close to the spine; the upper jaw is not in several pieces, but the mandibles and skull are as in osseous fishes generally ; there is no opercular gill, nor pseudo- branchia; the nostrils are very complicated, with labyrinthine gill-like folds ; the stomach is csecal, the intestine provided with a well marked spiral valve, and there is a single pan- creatic caecum ; the air bladder is double, com- municating with the throat by a duct opening on the ventral side, and its arteries are formed by the union of the blood vessels coming from the last gill, carrying therefore oxygenated blood. The lepidosteus is by far the best known and most interesting of the sauroid fishes, and has been of such value to palaeon- tologists that it has been well said by Hugh Mil- ler, in his "Lectures on Geology," that "it would almost seem as if the lepidosteus had been spared, amid the wreck of genera and species, to serve us as a key by which to un- lock the marvels of the ichthyology of those remote periods of geologic history appropriated to the dynasty of the fish." (See GANOIDS.) GARGANO, Monte (anc. Garganus Mons}. See APENNINES. GARIBALDI, Giuseppe, an Italian patriot, born in Nice, July 4, 1807. His father educated him to his own profession, that of a mariner. His second voyage was to Rome, when the con- dition of that city made a deep impression on his mind, and led him into those revolutionary views which, in February, 1834, resulted in his exile from Italy. He first went to Marseilles, whence he made voyages to various ports. He made one to the Black sea, passing Con- stantinople, where he had some years before spent a short time, and another to Tunis, and from there sailed for Rio de Janeiro. At Rio he met Rosetti, with whom he entered into an unsuccessful commercial partnership. About this time Zambeccari arrived there from Rio Grande, which had declared her independence ; becoming acquainted with Garibaldi and Ro- setti, he persuaded them to espouse the cause of that republic, and Garibaldi, with 20 com- panions under his command, embarked in a small craft which he named the Mazzini. In an engagement with two launches, which he beat off, he received a gunshot wound in the neck, which nearly proved fatal. He landed at Gualaguay on neutral soil, where he was treated to a certain extent as a prisoner, being prohibited from moving more than a short distance from the town. He endeavored to escape, but was retaken, brought back, and tortured nearly to death with the view of ex- torting from him the names of those who had favored his flight. Two months later he con- trived to reach Montevideo, where he found Rosetti, and the two returned to Rio Grande and joined a land expedition, under Bento Gonzalez, president of the republic, against the Brazilians who were infesting the neighbor- hood of Piratimin. Until the end of the war he was employed in the service of the short- lived republic, chiefly at sea, though sometimes