SWORD-FISHES. 



359 



should like to see cleared up by actual observation, and that is, in what manner 

 a sword-fish manages to remove from his weapon a cod, or other fish, which it 

 has spitted. Instances are on record of these fish attacking and transfixing 

 bathers ; one such having occurred in the estuary of the Severn about the year 1830. 

 Writing of one of the Pacific species, Colonel Pike observes that " this fish is a 

 beautiful sight in the water. It has a habit of lying sunning itself on the surface 

 when undisturbed, its dorsal fin is fully expanded and acting as a sail (and when 

 needed it can propel itself at great speed) ; but it is only in the calmest weather it 

 can be thus seen. It is frequently caught in deep water with hook and line, and 

 when near the surface it is speared." When it feels the hook, or spear, a sword- 

 fish takes tremendous leaps in the air, and if care be not exercised, will jump into 



SPOTTED INDIAN SWORD-FISH (^ nat. size). 



the boat of the fishermen. In the South Sea Islands young sword-fish are caught 

 in strong nets, although no net will hold a fish of 6 feet in length. One of the 

 most recent instances of a sword-fish 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 sword- 

 fish, measuring 1 foot in length and 5 inches in circumference. At one single 

 blow the fish had lunged his sword through, and completely transfixed thirteen 

 and a 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 sword-fish fixed in it, and 

 which has penetrated no less than twenty-two inches into the timber. When His 

 Majesty's ship Leopard was repairing, in 1795, after her return from the coast of 



