318 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [30] 
Aelian’s improbable story that they were taken in the Danube in 
winter has been mentioned. Southey and others relate that a man was 
killed while bathing in the Severn, near Worcester, by one of these 
fishes, which was afterwards caught. 
Couch states that a Sword-fish, supposed to weigh nearly 300 pounds, 
was caught in the river Parrett, near Bridgewater, in July, 1834.* 
According to De la Blanchére, one of them was taken, in the ninth 
year of the French Republic, in the river of Vannes, on the coast of 
Rhuys.j 
In the great hall of the Rathhaus in the city of Bremen hangs a 
large painting of a Sword-fish which was taken in the river Weser by 
some Bremen fishermen some time in the seventeenth century. 
Underneath it is painted the following inscription : 
“ ANNO. 1696. DEN. 18. JULI. IST. DIESER. 
FISCH. EIN. SCHWERTFISCH. GENANNT. VON. DIESER. 
STADT. FISCHERN. IN. DER. WESER. GEFANGEN. 
UND. DEM. 20. EJUSDEM. ANHERO. NAEHER. 
BREMEN. GEBRACHT. WORDEN. SEINE. GANZE. 
LENGTE. WAR. 10. FUSS. DAS. SCHWERT. WAR. 
74. VIRTEL. LANG. UND. 3. ZOLL. BREIT.” 
19.—GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF THE SWORD-FISH FAMILY. 
Although it may not seem desirable at present to accept in full the 
views of Dr. Liitken regarding the specific unity of the Spear-fishes 
and the Sail-fishes of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, it is convenient 
to group the different species in the way he has suggested in discussing 
their geographical distribution. — 
THE SworpD-Fisu, Xiphias gladius, ranges along the Atlantic coast of 
America from Jamaica, lat. 18° N., Cuba, and the Bermudas to Cape 
Breton, lat. 47°. Not seen at Greenland, Iceland, or Spitzbergen, but 
occurring, according to Collett, at the North Cape, lat. 71°. Abundant 
along the coasts of Western Europe, entering the Baltic and the Medi- 
terranean. I can find no record of the species on the west coast of Africa 
south of the Cape Verdes, though Liitken, who may have access to 
facts unknown to me, states that they occur clear down to the Cape of 
making all the noise they possibly could by beating the water with their feet and 
hands. After this had been kept up a while his curiosity became excited, and upon 
investigating the cause of the disturbance discovered a Sword-fish among the, 
where, in his attempts to escape, he had become bewildered and imprisoned. Quickly 
getting a harpoon, Mr. McKenzie fastened the fish, and with the aid of bystanders 
drew it alive upon the wharf, where it was visited by many spectators, and subse- 
quently dressed and sold. It measured ten feet from the end of its sword to the tip 
of the tail—the sword itself being three feet in length. It is the first instance known 
of one of these fish being so near the shore, and why it should have been there at 
that time described is not easily explained.”— Provincetown Advocate, September 29, 1875. 
* History of British Fishes, ii, p. 145. 
t Dictionnaire Général des Péches. 
