12( 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



miss its aim and strike the vessel's liull. Brown-Goode 

 gives almost the same account of the true Swordfish". 

 "They feed on menhaden, mackerel, bonitoes, bluefish 

 and other species which swim in close schools. Their 

 habits of feeding have often been described to me by 

 old fishermen. They are said to rise beneath the school 

 of small fish, striking to the right and left with their 

 swords until they have killed a number, which they 

 then proceed to devour. Menhaden have been seen 

 floating at the surface whicli have been cut nearlj' in 

 twain ])v a 1)1()W of a sword. Mr. John H. Thomson 

 reniiirks that he has seen them apparently- throw the 

 fish in the air, catching them as they fall. 



"Capt. Benjamin Ashby says that they feed on 

 mackerel, herring, whiting'', and menhaden". He has 

 f(>\nid half a bucketful of small fish of these kinds in 

 tlie stomach of one Swordfish. He has seen them in 

 tlie act of feeding. They rise perpendicularly out of 

 the water until the sword and two-thirds of the re- 

 mainder of the body are exposed to view. He has 

 seen a school of herring crowding together at the sur- 

 face on George's Banks as closely as they could be 

 packed. A Swordfish came up through the dense mass 

 and fell flat over on its side, striking many fish with 

 the sides of its sword. He has at one time picked up 

 as much as a l)ushel of herrings thus killed by a Sword- 

 fish on Geoi'ge's Banks. ' We know, too, that the 

 Swordfish also feeds on the Cuttle-fish: Fleming found 

 remains of LoJi(/o sagittata in its stomach. 



The peaceful disposition of the Swordfish may also 

 be observed when together with the Tunny it enters 

 the madrague or tonnaro of the Mediterranean fisher- 

 men. Sometimes it may tear the meshes of the lateral 

 nets of the madrague with its s"\vord and thus give the 

 Tunnies a way of escape; but it is often taken together 

 with them. It seems to be fairly sociable, and one 

 often finds Swordfish roving in pairs (male and female?). 

 The only information Ave have of the spawning-season 

 is from the Mediterranean, AA'here it is said to occur 

 in spring and the beginning of summer; but Ave have 

 no exact statements on this point. That it also spawns 

 in the open sea, is shown by the finds of small fry, 

 mentioned by Lutken, in the Atlantic and the Indian 



Ocean. In the Mediterranean young, but fully deve- 

 loped, SAvordfish, Aveighing half-a-pound or more, are 

 fairlv common, and are often sold in the Italian fish- 

 markets, especially in Sicily and at Genoa. Their 

 flesh is more highly esteemed than that of the larger 

 ones. 



The SAvordfish often attains a length of 12 feet or 

 even more; but specimens of a much larger size must 

 be considered at least as extraordinary exceptions, if 

 not as altogether fabulous. Broavn-Goode, hoAvever, 

 mentions a specimen of uncommonly large size, Avhich 

 according to Ashby's measurements had a SAVord nearly 

 6 ft. long and should thus have had a body almost 

 18 feet in length and have weighed betAveen 750 and 

 800 lbs. It is knoAvn in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic 

 as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian 

 Ocean, and the Pacific (off Ncav Zealand). In the At- 

 lantic it is fairly common off tlie coast of the United 

 States of North America; l)ut only full-groAvn specimens 

 have been taken there: Captain Ashby is said to have 

 caught 108 SAVordfish in one year. On the European 

 side it is not common even off the English coast, and 

 farther north it occurs still more seldom, though it 

 has been found in as high a latitude as West Finmark. 

 HoAvever, it can scarcely be considered as being rare 

 in Scandinavia, especially as it noAv and then enters 

 the Baltic and Avanders as far as Gothland''. Both Nils- 

 son and LiLLJEBORG state, as a proof of its common 

 occurrence oft" the soutli coast of Scania, that forty or 

 fifty years ago, bet.Aveen Malmo and Skanor, one might 

 very often see the dried tail of a SAvordfish set up as 

 a Aveathercock on a fisherman's cottage. According to 

 MoBius and Heincke it is oftenest in autumn that it 

 Avanders into the Baltic, as far as the coasts of Prussia 

 and Russia. Ekstrom and Malm have each described 

 one of tAvo specimens of the Swordfish taken recently 

 in Bohusliln, the one in Aby Fjord and the other oft' 

 Grebbestad: Cederstrom says that the SAvordfish is 

 fairly rare oft" the north of Bohusltln. Our figure is 

 coloured from a female 211 cm. in length, Avhich Avas 

 caught on the 21st of October, 1887, in Stahrekil (5 

 miles from Stromstad), and sent to the Royal Museum 

 by Mr. C. A. Hansson. 



" Mater, etc., p. 41; Industr. etc., p. 349. 

 * Not our European Whiting. 



' A Swordfish 2'43 metres in length, whieli was caught on the Ist of October, \i 

 of Schleswig and Aleen, liad about GO Herrings in its stomach (M6b., Hcke, 1. c). 

 '' LindstrOm, 1. c. and Lilueuoho, 1. c, p. 388. 



52, in a mackerel-net in a bay between the coast 



