348 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [60] 
A little farther east is the New Bedford fleet. Capt. I. H. Michaux, 
of the schooner “‘ Yankee Bride”, tells me that Sword-fish strike in 
about Block Island in the middle of June, and stay in that vicinity until 
the 15th or 20th of August. North of Cape Cod they are taken up to 
the 20th of October. 
The statements of Mr. John H. Thomson, of New Bedford, have 
already been quoted, but may be epitomized in this connection. From 
May 25 to June they are found south of Block Island, approaching the 
Vineyard Sound and the neighboring waters through June and to the 
middle of July. <A little later they are more abundant to the southeast 
of Crab Ledge, and after August 1 to the southeast of Cape Cod and 
George’s Banks. 
The schooner “ Northern Eagle”, of Gloucester, Capt. George H. 
‘Martin, when engaged in swordfishing, is accustomed to leave Glouces- 
ter so as to be on the ground south of Block Island by the 10th of June, 
and the fish are followed as far east as Portland. 
Mr. Earll ascertained that the Sword-fish are mostly fished for on the 
coast of Maine from July 1 to September 1. 
Halibut vessels on La Have and Sable Island Banks occasionally take 
these fish upon their lines. 
Mackerel vessels on the New England coast are always prepared for 
Sword-fish when cruising among mackerel schools. I am not aware 
that they have more than once been seen on the mackerel grounds of 
the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. 
47.—APPARATUS OF CAPTURE. 
The apparatus ordinarily employed for the capture of the Sword-fish 
is simple in the extreme. It is a harpoon with detachable head. When 
the fish is struck the head of the harpoon remains in the body of the 
fish, and carries with it a light rope, which is either made fast or held 
by a man in a small boat, or is attached to some kind of a buoy, which 
is towed through the water by the struggling fish and which marks its 
whereabouts after death. 
The harpoon consists of a pole 15 or 16 feet in length, usually of 
hickory or some other hard wood, upon which the bark has been left, 
so that the harpooner may have a firmer hand-grip. This pole is from 
an inch and a half to two inches in diameter, and at one end is pro- 
vided with an iron rod, or “shank”, about two feet long and five-eighths 
of an inch in diameter. This “shank” is fastened to the pole by means 
of a conical or elongated cup-like expansion at one end, which fits over 
the sharpened end of the pole, to which it is secured by screws or spikes. 
A light line extends from one end of the pole to the point where it joins 
the “shank”, and in this line is tied a loop, by which is made fast 
another short line which secures the pole to the vessel or boat, so that 
when it is thrown at the fish it cannot be lost. 
Upon the end of the “shank” fits somewhat securely the head of the 
harpoon, known to the fishermen by the names Sword-fish iron, lily-iron, 
