352 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [64] 
his pursuers’ vessel into harbor leaking, and almost sinking, from inju- 
ries which he has inflicted. I have known a vessel to be struck by 
wounded Sword-fish as many as twenty times in one season. There is 
even the spice of personal danger to give savor to the chase, for the 
men are occasionally injured by the infuriated fish. One of Captain 
Ashby’s crew was severely wounded by a Sword-fish which thrust his 
beak through the oak floor of a boat on which he was standing, and 
penetrated about two inches in his naked heel. The strange fascination 
draws men to this pursuit when they have once learned its charm. An 
old swordfisherman, who had followed the pursuit for twenty years, told 
me that when he was on the cruising ground he fished all night in his 
dreams, and that many atime he has bruised his hands and rubbed the 
skin off his knuckles by striking them against the ceiling of his bunk 
when he raised his arms to thrust the harpoon into visionary monster 
Sword-fishes. 
51.—A LANDSMAN’S DESCRIPTION OF SWORDFISHING. 
Mr. ©. F. Holder, of New York, published in the New York “ Forest 
and Stream”, February 17, 1876, the following description of a trip after 
Sword-fish in Block Island Sound: 
“ Lying all night in the harbor of Wood’s Holl, we had ample time to 
prepare for sport, and at three o’clock in the morning our little sloop 
was swinging around, and, gathering herself together, headed for Gay 
Head. The vessel was a common sloop of about sixty tons, 1ts only 
peculiarity being a stanchion with a curved top, to hold the harpooner, 
rigged on the extreme end of the bowsprit. At nine o’clock we were 
out of sight of the Vineyard. The wind settling, I was informed that I 
could go aloft and use my weather-eye, and the better I used it the 
more fish we would get. After not a few attempts to climb the greasy 
pole of a mast I found myself aloft, with a firm grasp upon the throat 
of the gaff, my weather-eye, contrary to orders, full of tar, and my port 
one on the lookout for the game. We were just moving along, and I 
was taking in the horizon for miles around, when the man at the bow 
uttered a sound, which was a sortof a cross between a cluck and a groan, 
which I saw meant ‘ port’, and that something had been sighted. The 
old craft fell lazily away, and I then saw two dark forms with their 
razor-like fins out of the water slowly moving along ahead of us. The 
captain signaled at once for me to come down, and as I reached the deck 
the fun commenced. The man waited until we were almost upon them, 
and as one of them turned, as if in idle curiosity, to see what the great 
shadow meant, he hurled a spear, and the next moment the huge fish 
sprang from the water and with a furious twist tried to shake out the 
iron. So great was the effort that it fell on its side with a crash, and 
for a moment was still, but it was only for a second. The line jumped 
into activity and rushed out so you could not follow it, now swaying to 
and fro, and making the water fly like rain. About 50 feet of line had 
