332 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [44] 
Aelian says (B. xxxii, C. 6) that the Sword-fish has a sharp-pointed 
snout with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to 
the bottom; instances of which have been known near a place in Mau- 
ritania known as Cotte, not far from the river Lixus, on the African 
side of the Mediterranean. He describes the sword as like the beak of 
the ship known as the trireme, which was rowed with three banks 
of oars. 
One of the earliest accounts is that given in the second part of vol. 
i, lib. ii, p. 89, 1615, of Purchas’ Pilgrims: 
“The sixth Circum-Navigation, by William Cornelison ‘Schovten of 
Horne; who Sovthwards from the Straights of Magelan in Tierra-Del- 
fvogo, fovnd and discovered a new passage through the great Sovth- 
Sea, and that way sailed rovnd about the World,” &c. 
Off the coast of Sierra Leone: 
“The fift of October we were vnder foure degrees seuen and twentie 
minutes, the same day about noone, there was such a noyse in the Bough 
of our Shippe, that the master, being behind in the Gallerie, thought 
that one of the men had fallen out of the Fore-ship, or from the Boe-sprit 
into the sea, but as hee looked out over the side of the Ship hee saw 
the Sea all red, as if great store of bloud had beene powred into it, 
whereat hee wondred, knowing not what it meant, but afterward hee 
found, that a great Fish or a Sea monster having a horne had there- 
with stricken against the ship with most great strength. For when we 
were in Porto Desire where we set the Ship on the Strand to make it 
cleane, about seven foot under water, before in the Ship, wee found a 
Horne sticking in the Ship, much like for thicknesse and fashion to a 
common Elephants tooth, not hollow, but full, very strong hard Bone, 
which had entered into three Plankes of the Ship, that is two thicke 
Plankes of greene and one of Oken wood, and so into a Rib, where it 
turned upward, to our great good fortune, for if it had entered between 
the Ribbes, it would happily have made a greater Hole and have brought 
both Ship and men in danger to be lost. It strucke at least halfe a foote 
deepe into the Ship and about half a foote without, where, with great 
force it was broken off, by reason whereof the great monster bled so 
much.” 
More than a century later C. Mortimer, M. D., records this expe- 
rience: 
‘‘Mr. Bankley shewed me the Horn of a Fish that had penetrated 
above 8 inches into the Timber of a Ship and gave me the following Re- 
lation of it: ‘His Magresty’s Ship Leopard, having been at the West 
Indies and on the Coast of Guiney, was ordered by Warrant from the 
Honorable Navy-Board, dated Aug. 18, 1725, to be cleaned and refitted 
at Portsmout for Channel-Service: Pursuant thereto, she was put into 
the great Stone-dock; and, in stripping off her Sheathing, the Ship- 
wrights found something that was uncommon in her Bottom, about 8 
