226 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Tales innumerable are current of swordfish attacking vessels, but most such 

 happenings are really the work of some one of the round-sworded spearfishes, which 

 seem either to be subject to fits of" temporary insanity, "asGoode, et al. (1884, p. 345), 

 called it, or, more likely, may strike a ship and pierce its planking while pursuing 

 bonito or other fish in its shadow. Though many pleasure and fishing craft, large and 

 small, cruise off our coasts every summer, we have never known of one being struck 

 by a swordfish unprovoked, but fish that have been harpooned often turn on their 

 pursuers and for one to so pierce the thin bottom of a dory is a common event. We 

 have, indeed, known several fishermen to be wounded in the leg in this way, but 

 always after the fish had been struck with the harpoon. Under these circumstances 

 swordfish have been known to drive their swords right through the planking of 

 a fishing vessel. 



Stories of swordfish attacking whales are time-honored traditions of the sea, 

 with no more stable foundation than the myth that they ally themselves with the 

 harmless thresher shark for the purpose. As a matter of fact swordfish are easily 

 frightened, but for some occult reason they will allow themselves to be almost run 

 down by a large vessel without paying the least attention to its approach until 

 aroused by its shadow or by the swirl of water under its forefoot, though I have never 

 heard of a swordfish actually being struck by a vessel. They always sound or dart 

 aside in time. When harpooned swordfish fight gamely on the surface or below. 

 Storer long ago wrote that they sometimes sound with such speed and force as to 

 drive the sword into the bottom, which fishermen say is by no means uncommon, 

 and we ourselves saw an instance of this off Halifax in August, 1914, when a fish 

 over 10 feet long, which we had harpooned from the Grampus, plunged with such 

 force that it buried itself in the mud beyond the eyes in 56 fathoms of water. When 

 finally hauled alongside it brought up enough mud plastered to its head to yield a 

 good sample of the bottom. 



How far temperature governs the distribution of swordfish is yet to be learned. 

 It is safe to say that it is a warm and not a cold-water fish, most plentiful in waters 

 warmer than 50°; but occasional captures on halibut line trawls set near bottom 

 as deep as 200 fathoms, together with the fact that swordfish are by no means rare 

 on the Newfoundland Banks, whence several fish were brought back by the American 

 cod fleet in 1920, proves that temperatures lower than 50° are not a bar to it. 



Full-grown swordfish are so active, powerful, and well armed that they can have 

 few enemies. Sperm and killer whales and the larger sharks alone menace them, 

 and while we can find no evidence that swordfish ever fell prey to the first two, 

 Captain Atwood found a good-sized swordfish in the stomach of a tiger shark as 

 recorded above (p. 28), and one swordfisherman of our acquaintance described 

 seeing two large sharks bite or tear off the tail of a swordfish of 350 pounds, which 

 he afterwards harpooned. Young swordfish would, of course, be preyed upon 

 by any of the larger predaceous fishes. 



Swordfish are infested with many parasites besides the remoras, several of which 

 are often found clinging to one fish. No less than 12 species of worms and 6 of cope- 

 pods have been identified from fish taken off Woods Hole alone. 



