NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Remarkable circumstance. 



a deep brown. The skin is smooth, and without 

 any appearance of scales. From the long sharp- 

 pointed process in front of the head, it would 

 seem, on a cursory view, to be allied to the Eu- 

 ropean species; but it differs from this in having 

 an extremely broad back fin, and two long 

 sharp-pointed appendages proceeding from the 

 thorax. It frequently grows to the length of 

 twenty feet and upwards, and is a very powerful 

 fish. 



In l?2o, when his Majesty's ship Leopard, 

 after her return from the coast of Guinea and 

 the West Indies, was ordered to be cleaned and 

 refitted for the Channel service, in stripping off 

 her sheathing the shipwrights found in her 

 bottom, pointing in a direction from the stern 

 towards the head, part of the sword or snout 

 of one of these fish. On the outside this was 

 rough, not unlike seal-skin, and the end, where 

 it was broken off, appeared like a coarse kind of 

 ivory. The fish, from the direction in which the 

 sword lay, is supposed to have followed the ship 

 when under sail. It had penetrated through the 

 sheathing; which was an inch thick ; passed 

 through three inches of plank, and beyond that 

 four inches and a half into the timber. The 

 force requisite to effect this (since the vessel 

 sailed in a direction from the fish) must have 

 been excessively great, especially as no shock 

 was felt by the persons on board. The workmen 

 on the spot declared it impossible, with a hammer 



