334 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [46] 
against all the risks of the seas. She sailed on March 10th, 1864, from 
Colombo, for London. Three days later the crew, while fishing, hooked a 
sword-fish. Xiphias, however, broke the line, and a few moments after 
leaped half out of the water, with the object, it should seem, of taking 
a look at his persecutor, the ‘Dreadnought’. Probably he satisfied him- 
self that the enemy was some abnormally large cetacean, which it was 
his natural duty to attack forthwith. Be this as it may, the attack was 
made, and at four o’clock the next morning the captain was awakened 
with the unwelcome intelligence that the ship had sprung a leak. She 
was taken back to Colombo, and thence to Cochin, where she was hove 
down. Near the keel was found a round hole, an inch in diameter, run- 
ning completely through the copper sheathing and planking. 
“« As attacks by Sword-fish are included among sea risks, the insurance 
company was willing to pay the damages claimed by the owners of the 
ship if only it could be proved that the hole had really been made by a 
Sword-fish. No instance had ever been recorded in which a Sword-fish 
had been able to withdraw his sword after attacking aship. A defense 
was founded on the possibility that the hole had been made in some 
other way. Professor Owen and Mr. Frank Buckland gave their evi- 
dence, but neither of them could state quite positively whether a Sword- 
fish which had passed its beak through three inches of stout planking 
could withdraw without the loss of its sword. Mr. Buckland said that 
fish have no power of ‘ backing,’ and expressed his belief that he could 
hold a Sword-fish by the beak; but then he admitted that the fish had 
considerable lateral power, and might so ‘wriggle its sword out of a 
hole’. And so the insurance company will have to pay nearly six hun- 
dred pounds because an ill-tempered fish objected to be hooked, and 
took its revenge by running full tilt against copper sheathing and oak 
planking.” 
The Gloucester schooner “ Wyoming”, on a last trip to Géorge’s Banks, 
records the New York World of August 31, 1875, was attacked by a 
Sword-fish in the night time. He assailed the vessel with great force, 
and succeeded in putting his sword through one of her planks some two 
feet, and after making fearful struggles to extricate himself, broke his 
sword off, leaving it hard and fast in the plank, and made a speedy 
departure. Fortunate was it that he did not succeed in drawing out 
his sword, as the aperture would undoubtedly have made a leak suffi- 
cient to have sunk the vessel. As it was, she leaked badly, requiring 
pretty lively pumping to keep her free.* 
Another instance of a similar nature is this, which was recorded in 
the Liverpool Mercury about the year 1876: 
“Mr. J. J. Harwood, master of the British brigantine ‘ Fortunate’, in 
dock at Liverpool, reports that whilst on his passage from the Rio 
Grande, when in latitude 20° 12’ north and longitude 47° 9’ west, this 
ee 
“New York World, August 31, 1875. 
