OF THE BIRDS AND LARGER FISHES 23 



The sword-fish is a doubtful visitor, though he 

 is taken off Greenland and on the American coast. 

 Many are the authentic accounts of ships he has 

 attacked and even sunk. 1 He will weigh as much 

 as 600 Ibs., and Professor Owen says, " he strikes 

 with the accumulated force of fifteen double-handed 

 hammers, and its velocity is equal to that of 

 swivel shot." In 1864 one, for which a sailor was 

 angling, stove a hole through the bottom of the 

 ship Dreadnought, and so " the insurance company 

 had to pay 600 because an ill-tempered fish ob- 

 jected to be hooked, and took revenge by running 

 full tilt against copper sheathing and wood plank- 

 ing." Also in 1864 Captain At wood took from the 

 stomach of a large shark a full-sized sword-fish, 

 but the shark's skin was pierced with a dozen 

 holes, showing how much the dainty morsel had 

 objected to being swallowed. Hanging with the 

 armour of Christopher Columbus at Siena, in Spain, 

 is a sword of this fish, said to be " taken from a 

 warrior they slew on nearing America." 



The fowl of the air are a most important factor 

 in Labrador life. Among many land birds that do 

 occur, far the most important are the willow grouse 

 and the spruce partridge. The former are large 

 birds, tawny red in summer, and white as driven 

 snow in winter. 2 At that season many depend on 

 these birds to keep them from starvation, and even 

 when a settler's ammunition has all run out, he can 



1 Goode's United States Fisheries. 



2 The willow grouse very rarely take to the trees, the spruce partridge 

 almost always. 



