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this species ten or twelve feet in length, and some have been 

 mentioned of eighteen or twenty. 



So remarkable an animal in size and conformation as the 

 sword-fish could not have been unknown at any period. All 

 the ancients speak of it in a manner that clearly proves their 

 intimate acquaintance with it. They describe its weapon, the 

 blows which it inflicts, the combats which it sustains, the 

 attacks which are made upon it, the stratagems by which it 

 is lured to destruction ; and they describe them pretty nearly 

 in the same style as more modern writers. 



The sword-fish, especially when adult, sometimes departs 

 from the Mediterranean, and ascends considerably to the 

 north. It appears along the coasts of Spain upon the ocean, 

 and is occasionally taken on those of France. Pennant men- 

 tions one which was taken on the coast of Caermarthen, whose 

 sword was three feet long. It has been seen in the German 

 Ocean, on the coasts of Holstein ; and Schonevelde informs us 

 that small ones are sometimes taken in the gulf of Ekeford on 

 the eastern coast of that country. It even enters farther into 

 the Baltic, and has been seen at Lubeck, on the coasts of 

 Mecklenburgh, of an enormous size. 



It seems doubtful whether or not it is found on the Ame- 

 rican coasts, and it is not mentioned by Mitchill in his ac- 

 count of the fishes of New York. Doctor Smith, however, in 

 his " Fishes of Massachusetts," gives a full description of it, 

 and assures us, on the authority of Mr. Daggett, an old pilot, 

 that it is by no means uncommon off that shore. There is no 

 notice of it in those authors who have written on the fish of 

 the more southern latitudes of America, nor in those who have 

 treated of the fishes in the Indian Ocean. But like many 

 others of the Mediterranean it appears to follow the coast of 

 Africa as far as the Cape. 



Among the habits of the sword-fish, is mentioned that of 

 usually going in pairs, a male and a female. Pliny, on the tes- 



