RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 



59 



with harpoon in hand. To this murderous 

 iron a long, light, strong line is fastened, 

 and to the other end of this rope is fastened 

 an enipt}" barrel. 



"Now the sword-fish is a ' queer critter,' 

 Whether he weighs 200 or 700 pounds, he 

 is the same sl^', ferocious, aggressive fellow, 

 the most terrific foe a man can meet in the 

 water, unless it is a man-eater shark, and 

 probably the sword-fish can give even him 

 some ' p'ints.' He is actually malicious, wan- 

 tonly ugl3'. His sword is a bony prolonga- 

 tion of his snout, often three feet long, and 

 used as he can use it, it is a terrible weapon. 

 He can not only attack, and even kill a 

 whale, hut will always attack a man, if he 

 can get at him, and will not seldom attack a 

 ship — burying his sword deep in the plank- 

 ing and breaking it olT. 



"Well, our harpooneron the little 'Ocean 

 View ' being duly warned b}' a shout from the 

 lookout, who has discovered a swordfish off 

 on the weather bow, gets read}' to throw his 

 lance. The fish after filling up with mack- 

 erel — on which he feeds — floats near the 

 surface motionless, his sharp, sickle-shaped 

 dorsal fin alone sticking out above the water 

 and serving to betray his position. If the 

 boat approaches ' across his bows,' so to 

 speak, or ' head on,' he will lie perfectly 

 still, let it almost go over him ; but you 

 can't follow him from behind ; he is suspi- 

 cious of that situation, and is oflT. He can 

 dart like a flash of lightning. No other fish 

 has such power of force and swiftness in 

 darting. It is this that makes his otherwise 

 not strong and rather harmless sword such 

 a formidable weapon. The harpooner throws 

 his lance, burying it deeply in the fish ; per- 

 haps throws it almost clear through his vi- 

 tals ; at any rate, the strong barbed iron 

 ' holds.' The instant the harpoon is hurled 

 over goes the barrel, too, thrown bj' a per- 

 son who is watching for that exact moment 

 — for the wounded fish darts off at an incred- 

 ible rate, and makes the foam and spray rise 

 well up over the barrel. This barrel reveals 

 his course as well as hampering him and 

 wearying him ; and one of the crew now 

 lowers a boat and goes after him to ' play ' 

 him, draw him in, and try to exhaust him. 

 If he can onlv once get a loop around the 

 slender bottom of that widely forked mack- 

 erel tail, he is sure of landing his prey and 

 not till then. 



"One of their fish proved to be a sly coon. 

 The man in the boat had followed him a 

 mile or so out from the little steamer, and 

 was ' playing' him, in the way of weary- 

 ing him out, when he was puzzled at the 

 queer conduct of the fish. The latter seemed 

 to be limp and spiritless — the line had 

 ceased to be ' taut,' and the interviewer 

 thought the fish must be giving up the whole 

 business, when like a shot from a rifled can- 

 non, crash ! came the ugly sword right through 

 the boat's bottom. It penetrated the bot- 

 tom, then passed through the tin bailing dip- 

 per that lay in a hollow reserved for that 

 utensil, near the boat's stern, then through 

 the plank cover, that fitted over that little 

 cupboard in the floor, to make it flush with 

 the rest, and striking the man on the heel, 

 knocked him head first to the other end of the 

 boat. His boot heel saved him from being 

 cut. The wounded fish that performed this 

 exploit then succeeded in drawing out his 

 sword, leaving only some pieces of its broken 

 edges near the end, as mementoes of the ad- 

 venture. The hole thus made in the boat 

 gave its startled occupant all he could do to 

 ' bail out' fast enough to keep afloat; but 

 he made signals for help, which were seen 

 and answered bj' the little steamer, and, 

 eventually, both man and swordfish were se- 

 cured. 



" One of these ugly sword fish last Fridaj'', 

 stuck his sword into the mackerel schooner 

 'Volunteer,' one of a fleet of mackerelmen 

 who are fishing here, from Gloucester, Cape 

 Ann. That fish wasn't so fortunate ; his 

 weapon proved to be firmlj' imbedded in the 

 ship's bottom, and in his frantic plunging 

 he not only broke it off", but tore out with 

 it some of his head. He was soon after 

 found dead ; but he had given the schooner 

 such a blow that it felt to those on board 

 as if she had struck something that jarred 

 iier all over ; and on going down into the 

 hold to look arthe bottom, there was found 

 the sword — it had gone clear through." 



The general history of the swordfish as 

 taken from the Natural History of Useful 

 Aqvatic Animals, hy George Brown Goode, 

 aflSrms that the range is from Jamaica, lati- 

 tude 18° north, to Cape Breton, latitude 47° 

 and along the coasts of Western Europe, 

 entering the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. 

 The various names for the fish in diff'erent 

 languages are simply variations on the one 



