ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 95 
NSS SSS PR SL PCE ERO ee ee pereceserr 
its appearance at intervals along our harbors and bays. One 
was taken in 1864 in Bedford Basin, at the head of Halifax Har- 
bor. September 6th, 1866, an individual weighing two hundred 
pounds was taken ina net at Devil’s Island. November rath, 
1866, the Rev. J. Ambrose sent me a sword, three feet and six 
inches long, from a fish taken at Dover, N. S., a few days pre- 
viously.” 
The swordfish has, once at least, penetrated into the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. In September, 1857, Capt. J. W. Collins was one 
of the crew of the schooner Mary Ellen, of Truro, Mass., and 
harpooned a swordfish four miles southwest of the eastern part 
of Prince Edward’s Land. i 
On the coasts of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island they 
abound in the summer months. Southward they are less fre- 
quently seen, though their occurrence off New York is not un- 
usual. I have never known one to be taken off New Jersey, and 
in our Southern waters they do not appear to remain. Uhler 
and Lugger vaguely state that they sometimes enter the Chesa- 
peake Bay.* This is apparently traditionary evidence. 
Dr. Yarrow obtained reliable information of their occasional 
appearance near Cape Lookout, N. C.t 
Mr. A. W. Simpson states, in a letter to Professor Baird, that 
swordfish are sometimes seen at sea off Cape Hatteras in Nov- 
ember and December, in large quantities. They sometimes find 
their way into the sounds. : 
An item went the rounds of the newspapers in 1876 to the ef- 
fect that a swordfish four feet long had been captured in the St. 
John’s River, near Jacksonville. After personal enquiry in 
Jacksonville, I am satisfied that this was simply a scabbard-fish 
or silvery hair-tail (Zvichiurus lepturus). 
Professor Poey states that the fishermen of Cuba sometimes 
capture the Pez de espada when in pursuit of Agwyas or spear- 
fishes.} 
* List of the Fishes of Maryland. ey P.R. Ubler and Otto Lugger, in Report of the 
Commissioners of Fisheries of Maryland, January, 1876, p. go. 
’ + Notes on the Natural History of Fort Macon, N. C., and vicinity (No. 3). By. H.C. 
Yarrow, in Proceedings of the Academy of Naturol Sciences of Philadelphia, 1877, p. 207- 
¢ Synopsis Piscium Cubensium, Cataloga Razonado de los Peces de la Isla de Cuba, in 
Repertorio Fisico-Natural de la Isla de Cuba, ii., 1868, p. 379. 
