2728 THE BONY FISHES AND GANOIDS 



be not exercised, will jump into the boat of the fishermen. In the South Sea 

 islands young swordfish are caught in strong nets, although no net will hold a fish 

 of six feet in length. One of the most recent instances of a swordfish attacking a 

 ship occurred in the year 1874, on the voyage between Bombay and Calcutta. On 

 this subject Frank Buckland writes that there -is in the Museum of the College of 

 Surgeons a section of the bow of a South-Sea whaler, in which ' ' is seen the end of 

 the sword of a swordfish, measuring one foot in length and five inches in circum- 

 ference. At one single blow the fish had lunged his sword through, and completely 

 transfixed thirteen and one-half inches of solid timber. The sword had, of course, 

 broken off in the hole, and thus prevented a dangerous leak in the ship. In the 

 British Museum is a second specimen of a ship' s side with the sword of a swordfish 

 fixed in it, and which has penetrated no less than twenty-two inches into the tim- 

 ber. When His Majesty's ship Leopard was repairing, in 1795, after her return 

 from the coast of Guinea, a sword of one of these fishes was found to have gone 

 through the sheathing one inch, next through a three-inch plank, and beyond that 

 four and one-half inches into the firm timber; and it was the opinion of the mechan- 

 ics that it would require nine strokes of a twenty-five-pound hammer to drive a bolt 

 of similar size and form to the same depth into the same hull; yet this was accom- 

 plished by a single thrust of the fish." In the Mediterranean countries, where 

 these fishes are commonly taken in tunny nets, their flesh is exposed for sale in the 

 markets. Geologically, the swordfishes appear to be a comparatively modern group, 

 the earliest known representatives, which have been assigned to the existing genus 

 Histiophorus , occurring in the London Clay. 



THE SCABBARD FISHES AND HAIRTAIIVS Family TRICHIURID^ 



Another group of equal rank with the perch-like section is formed by a family 

 of fishes, characterized by the elongate and compressed or even band-like form of 

 the body; the mouth having a wide cleft and several large conical teeth either in the 

 jaws or on the palate. The dorsal and anal rays are long and many rayed, with 

 the spinous nearly equal in length to the soft portion, finlets sometimes occurring 

 behind the latter; the pelvic fins, if present, are thoracic in position; and the caudal 

 is sometimes wanting, but, when developed, forked. In all cases the scales are 

 either rudimental or wanting, but the air bladder is constant. These fishes are dis- 

 tributed over all tropical and subtropical seas; but while some are surface forms, 

 never found at any great distance from the coasts, others descend to considerable 

 depths in the open sea; all are carnivorous, and many very powerful. In India, 

 writes Day, "these fishes are held in various estimation in different places. In 

 Baluchistan, and where salt is cheap, no one will touch them; but along the coasts 

 of India they are more esteemed, mostly because being thin or ribbon shaped they 

 can be dried without salting. In a fossil state these fishes date from the lower Eo- 

 cene of Switzerland and other parts of Europe, where they are represented by 

 extinct genera; species of scabbard fish occur in the Sicilian Miocene, which has 

 also yielded forms allied to the hairtails ( Trichiurichthys'} , but with the body scaled. 



