20 Recreations of a Sportsman 



vateer as had been caught in many a day. Its 

 slender sword, rapier-like, its under jaw a per- 

 fect poignard, its big staring black eyes, the 

 powerful tail and big dorsal fitting into a per- 

 fect scabbard, its rakish horizontal balancers at 

 the tail, the strongly defined black vertical stripes 

 about the body, the lead-colored remoras clinging 

 to it, all bespoke a piscatorial Dreadnaught. 



From the big launch in the morning, while 

 towing the skiff we had watched the swordfish 

 at long and short range. We stopped in front 

 of the cruisers many times, and waited for them 

 to come up. They saw the keel of our launch 

 one hundred feet away, and one another, even 

 farther off, having some unknown method of 

 finding their fellows, as we separated them, and 

 saw the fins several hundred feet apart, then 

 observed them join forces again after a short 

 disappearance, rising to swim with the big dorsal 

 and tail fin high out of the water. When a 

 turn was made the dorsal came fully out of the 

 scabbard. 



It was the consensus of opinion of Pinchot 

 and others who have taken these fishes and 

 tarpon, that the swordfish (Tetrapturus) is the 

 superior as a game fish, and of the eight of nine 

 taken in these waters in 1909 with rod and reel, 

 ranging from one hundred and fifty to three 

 hundred and fifty pounds, nearly all out-jumped, 

 and displayed more strength than the tarpon. 



