SWORD-FISH, SPEAR-FISH AND CUTLASS-FISH. 247 



instance of accurate weighing is much more valuable. The largest one 

 ever taken by Capt. Benjamin Ashby, for twenty years a sword-fish fisher- 

 man, was killed on the shoals back of Edgartown, Mass. When salted it 

 weighed 639 pounds. Its live weight must have been as much as 750 or 

 Soo. Its sword measured nearly six feet. This was an extraordinary 

 fish among the three hundred or more taken by Capt. Ashby in his long 

 experience. He considers the average size to be about 250 pounds 

 dressed, or 525 alive. Capt. Martin, of Gloucester, estimates the average 

 size at 300 to 400 pounds. The largest known to Capt. Michaux weighed 

 625. The average about Block Island he considers to be 200 pounds. 



The size of the smallest Sword-fishes taken on our coast is a subject of 

 much deeper interest, for it throws light on the time and place of breed- 

 ing. There is some difference of testimony regarding the average size, 

 but all fishermen with whom I have talked agree that very small ones do 

 not find their way into our shore waters. Numerous very small specimens 

 have, however, been already taken by the Fish Commission at sea, off our 

 middle and southern coast. 



Capt. John Rowe has seen one which did not weigh more than 75 

 pounds when taken out of the water. 



Capt. R. H. Hurlbert killed near Block Island, in July, 1S77, one 

 which weighed 50 pounds, and measured about two feet without its sword. 



Capt. Ashby' s smallest weighed about 25 pounds when dressed ; this he 

 killed off Noman's Land. He never killed another which weighed less 

 than 100. He tells me that a Bridgeport smack had one weighing 16 

 pounds (or probably 24 when alive), and measuring eighteen inches with- 

 out its sword. 



In August, 1S78, a small specimen of the mackerel-shark, Lamua cor- 

 nubica, was captured at the mouth of Gloucester Harbor. In its nostril 

 was sticking the sword, about three inches long, of a young Sword-fish. 

 When this was pulled out the blood flowed freely, indicating that the 

 wound w^as recent. The fish to which this sword belonged cannot have 

 exceeded ten or twelve inches in length. AVhether the small Sword-fish 

 met with its misfortune in our waters, or whether the shark brought this 

 trophy from beyond the sea, is an unsolved problem. 



Lutken speaks of a very young individual taken in the Atlantic, latitude 

 32 50' N., longitude 74 19' W. This must be about 150 miles southeast 

 of Cape Hatteras. 



