524 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



pounds. Its boldness and voracity, and craving for blood, are more 

 remarkable than its size. If the hammerhead has not the strength 

 of the shark, it surpasses it in fury ; few fishes are better known 

 to sailors in consequence of its striking conformation. Its voracity 

 often brings it round ships even in roadsteads, and near the coast. 

 Its visits impress themselves on the memory of the sailor, and he 

 loves to relate his hairbreadth escape from the meeting. 



The saw-fish is distinguished from all other known fishes by the 

 formidable arm which it carries in its head. This weapon is a pro- 

 longation of the muzzle, which, in place of being rounded off or 

 reduced to a point, forms a long, strong, straight, sword-like termina- 

 tion, flat on both sides, but on the two edges it is furnished with 

 numerous strong teeth of considerable length, which are prolongations 

 of the hard, bony substance which forms the muzzle forming, in 

 short, a sword-blade deeply toothed on each edge. 



Thus armed, the saw, or sword-fish, as it is sometimes called, the 

 length of which is from twelve to fifteen feet, fearlessly attacks the 

 most formidable inhabitants of the sea. With its threatening weapon, 

 sometimes two yards in length, it dares to measure its strength with 

 the whale. All fishermen who visit the northern seas assert that the 

 meeting of these ocean potentates is always followed by a combat of 

 the most singular kind, in which the activity of the sword-fish is a 

 match for the formidable strength of the whale. Occasionally it 

 dashes itself with such force against the sides of a ship, that its sword 

 is broken in the timber. In the British Museum the blade of a 

 sword-fish may be seen which was thus implanted in the timber of 

 a ship. 



III. STUBIONA. 



In the second division of cartilaginous fishes, or sturgeons, the gills 

 are free, as in the ordinary fishes. In the sturgeon the gill-openings 

 are a single, very wide orifice, with an operculum, but without radi- 

 ating membrane. They are fishes of great size, living in the sea, but 

 ascending the larger rivers in the spawning season. Our space only 

 permits us to notice, the Chimaera and Sturgeon. 



The naturalists Clusius and Aldrovandus compared the fish, to which 

 they gave the name of Chimaera arctica, to the chimaera, a monster of 



