326 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [38] 
this he killed off Noman’s Land. He never killed another which 
weighed less than 100. He tells me that a Bridgeport smack had one 
weighing 16 pounds (or probably 24 when alive), and measuring 18 
inches without its sword. 
In August, 1878, a small specimen of the mackerel shark, Lamna cor- 
nubica, was captured at the mouth of Gloucester Harbor. In its nostril 
Dr. Bean found the sword, between 1 and 2 inches long, of a young 
Sword-fish. When this was pulled out the blood flowed freely, indicat- 
ing that the wound was recent. The fish to which this sword belonged 
cannot have exceeded 10 or 12 inches in length. Whether the small 
Sword-fish met with its misfortune in our waters, or whether the shark 
brought this trophy from beyond the sea, is a question I cannot answer. 
Liitken speaks of a very young individual taken in the Atlantie, lat. 
32° 50! N., long. 749 19’ W. This must be about 150 miles southeast of 
Cape Hatteras. ; 
29.—SIZE OF SWORD-FISH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
In the Mediterranean, near Sicily and Genoa, young fish, ranging in 
weight from half a pound to 12 pounds, are said to be abundant be- 
tween November and March. 
About La Ciotat and Martigues, in the south of France, many are 
taken too small to injure the fishing-nets, and very rarely reaching the 
weight of 100 pounds. 
Irom the statements of Bloch and later writers it appears that large 
Sword-fish also are abundant in the Mediterranean. Late Italian fishery 
reports state that the average weight of those taken on the coast of 
Italy is 50 kilograms (110 pounds). 
Of the coasts of Spain and Portugal Steindachner remarks: ‘More 
abundant on the southern coasts of Spain than on the northern, western, 
and eastern sides of the Iberian peninsula. We saw quite large exam- 
ples in the fish-markets at Gibraltar, Cadiz, Lisbon, La Corufia, and Bar- 
celona, and at Santa Cruz, Teneriffe. The largest of three specimens 
in my possession is 43 inches long, another 24 inches.”* 
30.—RATE OF GROWTH. 
Little is known about the rate of growth. The young fish taken in 
winter in the Mediterranean, ranging in weight from half a pound to 
12 pounds, are thought to have been hatched during the previous sum- 
mer. Those of a larger size, ranging from 24 to 60 pounds, taken on 
the New England coast in the summer, may perhaps be the young of 
the previous year. Beyond this even conjecture is fruitless. As in 
other species, the rate of growth depends directly upon the quantity ot 
food consumed. It is to be presumed that a summer passed in feasting 
among the crowding schools of menhaden and mackerel in our waters 
*Sitzb. Ak. Wiss. Wein, 1868, p. 396. 
