ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 107 
fish, weighing 1,500 pounds and upward, and old sailors will in 
good faith describe the enormous fish which they saw at sea, but 
could not capture; but one well-authenticated instance of ac- 
curate weight is much more valuable. The largest one ever 
_taken by Capt. Benjamin Ashby, for twenty years a swordfisher- 
man, was killed on the shoals back of Edgartown, Mass. When 
salted it weighed six hundred and thirty-nine pounds. Its live 
weight must have been as much as seven hundred and fifty or 
eight hundred pounds. Its sword measured nearly six feet. 
This was an extraordinary fish among the three hundred or 
more taken by Capt. Ashby in his long experience. He consid- 
ers the average size to be about two hundred and fifty pounds 
dressed, or three hundred and twenty-five alive. Captain Mar- 
tin, of Gloucester, estimates the average size at three hundred to 
four hundred pounds. The largest known to Capt. Michaux 
weighed six hundred and twenty-five pounds. The average 
about Block Island he considers to be two hundred pounds. 
There are other stories of large fish. Capt. R. H. Hurlbert, 
of Gloucester, killed one on George’s Banks, in September, 
1876, which weighed when dressed four hundred and eighty 
pounds. Capt. John Rowe, of the same port, salted one which 
filled two and one-half barrels. This probably weighed six 
hundred pounds when alive. I have been told that a swordfish 
loses one-third of its weight in dressing, but I should think that 
one-fourth would be nearer to the truth. Capt. Baker, of the 
schooner Peter D. Smith, of Gloucester, assures me that he kill- 
ed, in the summer of 1874, off Portland, a swordfish which 
weighed seven hundred and fifty pounds. 
Mitchell and DeKay state that in 1791 a swordfish sixteen feet 
in length was exhibited in New York. It is questionable 
whether they often exceed this measurement. My own observa- 
tions have been made on specimens from seven to twelve feet 
long. A stuffed specimen in the United States National Mu- 
feet, and this seems to be very nearly the 
seum measures 
average size. 
= 2 
MINIMUM SIZE OF AMERICAN SWORDFISH. 
The size of the smallest swordfishes taken on our coast isa 
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