7 
of 
‘ 
[27] MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF THE SWORD-FISHES. 315 
Sweden and Norway, where Linneus observed them, and, according to 
Liitken, have been taken on the coast of Finmark. They are known to 
have occurred in Danish waters and to have found their way into the 
Baltic, thus gaining a place in the fauna of Russia. A number of in- 
stances of the occurrence of Sword-fish in the Baltic are mentioned 
above in paragraph 13. 
16.—DISTRIBUTION ON THE COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. 
Allusion has been made to the early accounts of the Sword-fish on the 
coast of the United States both in the work of Catesby and the letters 
of Garden to Ellis and Linnzeus; also, to Mitchill’s account of it in 1818. 
Though it is strange that this very conspicuous species was not recorded 
more frequently by early American authors, it is still more remarkable 
that its right to a place in the fauna of the Western Atlantic was either 
denied or questioned, as late as 1836, by such well-informed authors as 
Sir John Richardson and MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes. 
Storer’s “Report on the Ichthyology and Herpetology of Massachu- 
setts”, published in 1839, was the first American faunal list, after Cates- 
by’s, in which the Sword-fish was mentioned among the American fish. 
The range of the species on the eastern coast of America can now be 
defined with some accuracy. Northward and eastward these fish have 
been seen as far as Cape Breton and Sable Island Banks. 
Captain Rowe states that during a trip to George’s Banks he has 
seen them off Chebucto Head, near Halifax, where the fishermen claim 
occasionally to have taken them with a seine. 
Capt. Daniel O’Brien, of the schooner “‘ Ossipee”, took five Sword-fish 
on his halibut-trawl, in 200 fathoms of water, between La Have and 
Brown’s Banks, in August, 1877. 
*Richardson remarks: ‘‘ The habits of the Scomberoid@ are quite in accordance 
with their great powers of natation. We found among them many fish that pass their 
lives remote from the land, in the middle districts of the ocean, and the family may 
be termed pelagic with as much propriety as some of the preceding ones have been 
named after the countries where they most abound. The bonitos and dolphins, or 
Coryphene, especially, roam about the tropics, pursuing schools of various kinds of 
flying fish. There is a greater number of species that cross the Atlantic belonging to 
this family than to any preceding one. Among these are Scomber grix, Pelamys sarda, 
Trichiurus lepturus, Elacate atlantica, Lichia glaucus, Caranx carangus, and Nomens mau- 
ritii. Several not only traverse the Atlantic from side to side, but also range through 
other seas; thus, Thynnus pelamys and Sariola cosmopolita are known on both sides of 
the Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean. Ausxis vulgaris, which is common to the Medi- 
terranean and Caribbean Seas, also extends to the Indian Archipelago, if the Taso of 
New Guinea be the same species. Vomer Brownii visits both sides of the Atlantic, 
and also the sea of Peru. Many of the species mentioned above as traversing the Atlantic 
exist also in the Mediterranean ; and there are several others which have an extensive range 
in the latter sea and through the whole eastern s‘de of the Atlantic, though they, do not cross 
to America, such as Scomber scombrus, Lepidopus argyreus, XIPHIAS GLADIUS, and Nau- 
crates ductor. * * * Xiphias gladius is enumerated by Dr. Smith, in his list of the 
fish of Massachusetts; but as he has included several other European species in his 
list on very insafficient grounds, further evidence is required of its being an American 
fish.”—(Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Amercani, p, 78.) 
