120 ACANTHOPTERYGII. SCOMBRID^. 



a man while bathing in the Severn. It is by no 

 means an uncommon tiling for this great and 

 powerful iish to bury his weapon in the timbers 

 of a ship, and perhaps some of the cases in which 

 ships never heard of, and supposed to have gone 

 down in stress of weather, may have been owing to 

 an accident of this sort. It is probable, however, 

 that such an encounter is, in most cases, fatal to the 

 fish, for to pull out the sword from nine inches 

 or more of solid timber, would need a greater 

 effort than to drive it in, and would require that, 

 force to be exerted under most disadvantageous 

 conditions. For to give the blow, the animal is 

 able to bring an impetus acquired by the exercise 

 of his utmost powers of swimming, but to dis- 

 lodge his firmly inserted brand, he must exert 

 a backward force, for which his fins are but feebly 

 adapted, and without the advantage of any ac- 

 cumulated impetus. How great a force is re- 

 quired to perform the terrible feat we learn from 

 the report of the shipwrights, who examined the 

 bottom of H.M.S. Leopard, which, on her return 

 from a tropical cruise in 1725, was found to have 

 the weapon of a Sword-fish imbedded in her tim- 

 bers. They declared that to drive an iron pin 

 of the same size and form to the same depth, 

 it would require eight or nine strokes of a ham- 

 mer of twenty-eight pounds weight. How mighty 

 then must have been the muscular power of this 

 fish, which had been able to perform such a feat 

 at a single stroke ! What adds to our admiration 

 is that from the position in which the sword had 

 penetrated, from the stern towards the bow, it 

 was evident that the fish had followed the ship 

 when under sail ; so that the whole way of the 



