The Birthplace of Xiphias 265 



Xiphias is master of even the albacore, though in 

 average size much inferior. The shark again, while 

 far superior to the albacore in point of size, is in the 

 first place hardly to be classed with fish proper, being 

 rather an intermediary between mammal and fish. 

 At any rate I still hold the albacore the king of all 

 fish, while purposing to do full justice to the claims 

 of the Xiphias. 



To a sheltered nook of the Maldive Island reef 

 bases there entered on a day a little company of Sword- 

 fish, and sauntering inquisitively around, seemed to 

 survey with deepest interest every cranny of the 

 wonderful place. It was a triangular area of dazzling 

 white sand, almost exactly level, about two acres 

 in extent and buttressed on all sides except just at the 

 apex of the triangle, by almost vertical walls of live 

 coral. Its floor was about twenty fathoms below 

 the surface, which, shut in from the breakers by massive 

 ramparts of rock, received, as if on a sapphire mirror, 

 the rays of the tropical sun, and transmitted them in 

 all lovely hues down to the silvern floor. Only a few 

 small fish flitted stealthily to and fro over the smooth 

 sand, or dodged in or out of the interstices of the coral, 

 on the never-ending hunt for food. But when they 

 saw the majestic forms of the Sword-fish come gliding 

 in they fled, anywhere out of that dread com- 

 pany, whose presence spelt death to them if they 

 remained. 



The new-comers were twelve in number, ten females 

 and two males, and having completed their leisurely 

 survey of the place and finding it apparently well 

 suited to their purpose, they glided gently over the 

 bottom, waving their broad pectoral and ventral fins 

 gently, as if they were still further smoothing the 

 white sand. Having apparently settled matters to 



