ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 89 
The Cuban #shermen agree in admitting under the name 4gw- 
ja blanca two species, one called Cadezona (large-headed) ; the 
other smaller, the nape lower. I agree with them to some ex- 
tent ; yet, although I have drawn and measured many indivi- 
duals of the two kinds, I do not dare todescribe them as distinct, 
since I find remarkable variations, which lead me to suspend my 
judgment. I only describe one individual from those considered 
the large-headed variety.” 
EARLY ALLUSIONS TO THE SWORDFISH IN EUROPE. 
The swordfish was known to Pliny, who writes: ‘‘ The sword- 
fish, called in Greeke Xithias, that is to say in Latin Glaudius, a 
sword, hath a beake or bill sharp-pointed, where with he will 
drive through the sides and plankes of a ship, and bouge them 
so, that they shall sinke withall. The experience whereof 
is scene in the ocean, near to a place in Mauritania called Got- 
ta, which is not far from the river Lixos.’’* 
Many other classical and medizeval writers made curious allu- 
sions to the swordfish. A very good summary of their views is 
given by Bloch, and is here quoted. The scepticism of this au- 
thor is sometimes a little excessive : 
“This fish is found in the North Sea and the Baltic, but is 
rare in those waters. In the Mediterranean, however, it is very 
abundant. It lives for the most part in the Atlantic, where in 
the winter it is found in mid-ocean. In spring it appears on the 
coast of Sicily, where its eggs are deposited on the bottom in 
great numbers. However, according to what I have been told 
by the illustrious Chevalier Hamilton, it is never seen in that 
region more than three or four feet long. The larger ones, often 
weighing four hundred or five hundred pounds, and eighteen to 
twenty feet long, are found on the coast of Calabria, where they 
appear in June and July. Pliny remarked that they often ex- 
ceeded the dolphin in size. * * * 
“Various writers have spoken of the ‘ Emperor of the Sea’ as 
occurring in the Baltic. Olearius and Schelhammer record its 
capture near Holstein ; Schoneveld mentions one from Mecklen- 
* Holland’s Pliny, ii., page 428. 
