498 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



180° 



170° 



160° 



150° 



140° 



-30° 



20° 



H A IV , 



^^^ 

 o O 



^f^^ 



-XJ- 



130° 



-I0°- 



^ 



s 



St^'p fjl 







PHOENIX > 

 IS ^ 



-10° 



•t 



.*';, 



IS 



-10° 



180° 



I 



170° 



_l 



160° 



_J 



150° 



I 



140° 



I 



130° 



I 



120° 



I 



,10° 



I 



Figure 1. — Position of longline fishing stations where spearfish data were obtained. 



fish. Many scientific staff members have made 

 observations and those who measured the fish are 

 hsted in the appendix. Some people made very 

 special contributions: Vernon Brock, of the Divi- 

 sion of Fish and Game, Board of Agriculture and 

 Forestry, of the Territory of Hawaii, in addition 

 to his many lielpful suggestions, made available 

 to us observations on the spearfishes recorded by 

 his division, and critically read this manuscript; 

 Wilvan G. Van Campen, Japanese translator for 

 POFI, brought to our attention and translated 

 various Japanese publications on the spearfislies, 

 which added so greatly to our knowledge of this 

 group; and Daniel T. Yamashita and Dorothy D. 

 Stewart most carefully brought together the ob- 

 servations obtained on the longline cruises and 

 assisted notably in the computations. I am also 

 indebted to Carl L. Hubbs, James E. Morrow, 

 Hiroshi Nakamura, Luis R. Rivas, and Robert L. 

 Wisner, for their critical reading of the manuscript. 



SPECIES OF SPEARFISHES IN THE 

 CENTRAL PACIFIC 



The separation and naming of tlie species of 

 spearfishes has been a problem of particular diffi- 

 culty, because the original descriptions of most of 

 the species are so poor and some of the species are 

 so similar and variable that it is impossible to 

 identify them immediately from the original 

 descriptions. It has been necessary for us to start 

 witli identifications made by our fishermen, most 

 of whom are experienced longline fishermen and 

 have seen many marlins. We also have had the 

 benefit of the key to Hawaiian fishes by Brock 

 (1950), which was based on observations of the 

 marlins landed in the Hawaiian market. 



The fishermen of Hawaii recognize six species of 

 spearfishes to which they have given the English 

 names of black marlin, silver marlin, striped 

 marlin, Indian spearfish, sailfish, and broadbill 

 swordfish. After seeing several hundred speci- 



