A NEW SWORDFISH MODEL 181 
A NEW SWORDFISH MODEL 
REAT interest prevailed in the Department of Preparation one hot 
Saturday forenoon in late July when a swordfish, a very perfect 
130-pound representative of its race, was brought there as a gift 
from one of the Museum’s members, Mr. George McKesson Brown. The 
fish was in fine condition for casting; it had been put, as soon as captured, 
into a specially constructed zinc-lined tank filled with ice, then after a 
hurried sail to New York, had been removed from the yacht’s deck to the 
Museum, still in its ice-filled tank. 
The staff of the Department dropped other work and under the direction 
of Dr. Louis Hussakof and the donor set out to pose the fish, ready for the 
manipulation of clay and plaster about it. The body was made to curve 
slightly as if in motion. The tail fin was placed stiffly in the position in 
which it cuts the water as it moves rigidly from side to side. This rigid 
widely-forked tail fin, contrasting with the curving flexible tail fin of a 
shark, announces the identity of the swordfish to the fisherman watching 
with harpoon ready at the prow of his boat. The “sword” was posed 
straight out in front, more than three feet in length, slender and rapier- 
like, a weapon made by consolidation of the upper jaw bones. It is this 
sharp-edged instrument that is said to prove so deadly to a school of fish. 
The swordfish rises fully into air above the prey, turns on its side and 

drops —a long, slender form glistening in air momentarily. Then the 
many small fish sharply cut in two by the descending weapon are followed 
and picked up as they settle to the bottom. The men in the taxidermy 
shop continued to work throughout the day but as a result, at night, 
there lay beside the fish a two-piece mold, perfect imprints of the two sides 
of the fish. 
The adaptation of a swordfish to endure high pressure is said to be re- 
markable. A diver who can stand a greater pressure than sixty or seventy 
feet is difficult to find, to stand one hundred feet is most unusual, although 
there are extreme cases in which the record is higher than this. It is said 
that the usual sub-marine boat can endure little more than one hundred and 
fifty feet depth, its standard power being to maintain a depth of seventy- 
five feet; yet a swordfish, according to Mr. Brown, will reach a depth of 
twelve hundred feet. When harpooned and given freedom, fastened only 
to a floating keg, it may carry a two hundred fathom line straight down 
till taut. If the line is too short to reach the bottom, the keg will be 
dragged under, staves and hoops will rise to the surface, resulting in the 
loss of the fish to the pursuing boat. 
