SWORD-FISH, SPEAR-FISH AND CUTLASS-FISH. 249 



ency. Its flavor is l)y many considered fine, and is not unlike that of the 

 bluefish. Its color is gray. The meat of the young fish is highly prized 

 on the Mediterranean, and is said to be perfectly white, compact, and of 

 delicate flavor. Sword-fish are usually cut up into steaks — thick slices 

 across the body — and may be broiled or boiled. 



The apparatus ordinarily employed for the capture of the Sword-fish is 

 simple in the extreme. It is a harpoon with detachable head. When 

 the fish is struck, the head of the harpoon remains in the body of the fish, 

 and carries Avith it a light rope, which is either made fast or held by a man 

 in a small boat, or is attached to some kind of a buoy, which is towed 

 through the water by the struggling fish, and which marks its whereabouts 

 after death. 



The harpoon consists of a pole 15 or 16 feet in length, usually of hickory 

 or some other hard wood, upon which the bark has been left, so that the 

 harpooner may have a firmer hand-grip. This pole is from an inch and a 

 half to two inches in diameter, and at one end is provided with an iron 

 rod, or "shank," about two feet long and five-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter. This "shank" is fastened to the pole by means of a conical 

 or elongated, cup-like expansion at one end, which fits over the sharpened 

 end of the pole, to which it is secured by screws or spikes. A light line 

 extends from one end of the pole to the point where it joins the " shank," 

 and in this line is tied a loop, by which is made fast another short line 

 which secures the pole to the vessel or boat, so that when it is thrown at 

 the fish it cannot be lost. 



Upon the end of the " shank " fits the head of the harpoon, known by 

 the names Sword-fish iron, lily-iron, and Indian-dart. The form of this 

 weapon has undergone much variation. The fundamental idea may very 

 possibly have been derived from the Indian fish-dart, numerous specimens 

 of which are in the National Museum, from various tribes of Indians of New 

 England, British America, and the Pacific. However various the modifica- 

 tions may have been, the similarity of the different shapes is no less note- 

 vrorthy from the fact that all are peculiarly American. In the enormous col- 

 lection of fishery implements of all lands in the late exhibition at Berlin, 

 nothing of the kind could be found. What is known to whalers as a toggle- 

 harpoon is a modification of the lily-iron, but so greatly changed by the ad- 

 dition of a pivot by which the head of the harpoon is fastened to the shank 

 that it can hardly be regarded as the same weapon. The" lily-iron is, in princi- 



