GLADIATORS OF THE SEA. 



337 



earliest voyage across the 

 Atlantic. It consists of 

 the arms and armor worn 

 by the discoverer when he 

 first set foot upon land in 

 the New World, and the 

 weapon of a native killed 

 by his men before they 

 reached the shore — the 

 sword of a sword-fish. 

 The names of this fish in 

 he principal languages of 

 Europe are simply varia- 

 tions of the Glad his of an- 

 cient Italy, and Xiphias, 

 the name by which Aris- 

 totle, the father of zo- 

 ology, called the same 

 fish twenty-three hundred 

 years ago. At the very 

 inception of binomial no- 

 menclature Linnajus called 

 it XipJdas gladius, by 

 which name it has been 

 known to science ever 

 since. The form of the 

 sword-fish may be seen 

 in Fis'. 1. It is without 

 scales. Its color is a rich 

 purplish blue above, shad- 

 ing into silvery white be- 

 neath ; the lower side of 

 the beak is brownish pur- 

 ple. A sword-fish which 

 does not exceed the aver- 

 age weiffht of a man is a 

 small fish ; the average 

 weight is about three hun- 

 dred and fifty pounds, and 

 doiibtless many attain the 

 weight of five hundred 

 pounds, but fish weighing 

 above six hundred are ex- 

 ceptional. Newspapers are 

 fond of recording the oc- 

 currence of giant fish, weighing fifteen hundred pounds and upward, 



VOL. XXTI. — 22 



