(51] MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF THE SWORD-FISHES. 339 
whales just as they do ships. The habit is mentioned by Pliny, and is 
the motive for one of the Visions of the World of Edmund Spenser: 
Toward the sea turning my troubled eye 
I saw the fish, (if fish I may it cleepe) 
That makes the sea before his face to flye 
And with his flaggie finnes doth seeme to sweepe 
The fomie waves out of the dreadfull deep. 
The huge Leviathan, dame Nature’s wonder, 
Making his sport, that manie makes to weep: 
A Sword-fish small, him from the rest did sunder, 
That, in his throat him pricking softly under, 
His wide abysse him forced forth to spewe, 
That all the sea did roare like heavens thunder, 
And all the waves were stained with filthie hewe. 
Hereby I learned have not to despise 
Whatever thing seems small in common eyes.* 
I give also a few lines from an old play quoted by Scott as a heading 
to one of the chapters of the “The Antiquary ”: 
Who is he ?—One that for the lack of land 
Shall fight upon the water—he hath challenged 
Formerly the grand whale; and by his titles 
Of Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth 
He tilted with a Sword-fish.—Marry, sir, 
Th’ aquatic had the best—the argument 
Still galls our champion’s breach.t 
Baron Lahontan, in a letter from Quebec, November 8, 1783, described 
an engagement between a whale and a Sword-fish which took place 
within gun-shot of his frigate. He remarks: 
“We were perfectly charmed when we saw the Sword-fish jump out 
of the water in order to dart its spear into the body of the whale when 
obliged to take breath. This entertaining show lasted at least two 
hours, sometimes to the starboard and sometimes to the larboard of the 
ship. The sailors, among whom superstition prevails as much as among 
the Egyptians, took this for a presage of some mighty storm.” 
Another early observer wrote as follows: 
“Concerning the Death of the Whale, which hath been related to have 
been stranded upon New England, it is not very improbable but that 
it may have been killed by a certain Horny Fish, which is said by Mr. 
Terry, in his East India Voyage, to run his Horn into the Whale’s 
Belly; and which is known sometimes to run his Horn into Ships, per- 
haps taking them for Whales, and there snapping it asunder, as hap- 
pened not long since to an English Vessel in the West Indian Seas.”§ 
* Spenser’s Visions of the Worlds Vanitie, 1591. 
t‘‘Old Play,” Antiquary, chap. xxx. 
} Travels in Canada, 2d ed., London, 1785, 2 vols. 8vo. 
§ An account of Whale fishing about the Bermudas by an understanding and hardy 
Seaman. Phil. Trans. abr. ed. ii, p. 844. 
