ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. ie 4 
‘The English ship Queensberry has been struck by a sword- 
fish which penetrated to a depth of thirty inches, causing a leak 
which necessitated the discharge of the cargo.” 
The London Daily News of December 11th, 1868, contained 
the following paragraph, which emanated, I suspect, from the 
pen of, Prof; R:,.A, Proctor:: 
“Last Wednesday the court of Common Pleas—rather a 
strange place, by the by, for inquiring into the natural history 
of fishes—was engaged for several hours in trving to determine 
under what circumstances a swordfish might be able to escape 
scot-free after. thrusting his snout into the side of a ship. The 
gallant ship Dreadnought, thoroughly repaired, and classed Ar 
at Lloyd’s, had been insured for £3,000 against all the risks of 
the seas. She sailed on March t1oth, 1864, from Colombo, for 
London. Three days later the crew, while fishing, hooked a 
swordfish. Xiphias, however, broke the line, and a few moments 
after leaped half out of the water, with the object, it would 
seem, of taking a look at his persecutor, the Dreadnought. Pro- 
bably he satisfied himself that the enemy was some abnormally 
large cetacean, which it was his natural duty to attack forth- 
with. Bethis as it may,the attack was made, and at four o’clock 
the next morning the captain was awakened with the unwel- 
come intelligence that the ship had sprung a leak. She was 
taken back to Colombo, and thence to Cochin, where she 
was hove down. Near the keel was founda round hole, an inch 
in diameter, running completely through the copper sheathing 
and planking. 
“As attacks by swordfish are included among sea risks, the 
insurance company was willing to pay the damages claimed by 
the owners of the ship if only it could be proved that the hole 
had really been made by a swordfish. No instance had ever 
been recorded in which a swordfish had been able to withdraw 
his sword after attacking a ship. A defense was founded on the 
possibility that the hole had been made in some other way. 
Professor Owen and Mr. Frank Buckland gave their evidence, 
but neither of them could state quite positively whether a sword- 
fish which had passed its beak through three inches of stout 
planking could withdraw without the loss of its sword. Mr. 
