116 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
masthead called out, ‘Why, here he is, right alongside.’ The 
fish was then about ten feet from the boat, and swimming in the 
same direction, but when he got where he could see the splash 
of water around the bow he turned and struck the boat about 
two feet from the stern and just below the water-line. The 
sword went through the planking, which was of cedar an inch 
and three-quarters thick, into a lot of loose iron ballast, breaking 
off short at the fish’s head. A number of boats, large and small, 
have been ‘stove’ by swordfish on our coast, but always after 
the fish had been struck.” 
A nameless writer in Harper's Weekly, October 25th, 1879, nar- 
rates these instances, for which I am unable to give the original 
authority. 
“In a calm day in the summer of 1832, on the coast of Massa- 
chusetts, a pilot was rowing his little skiff leisurely along, when 
he was suddenly roused from his seat by a thrust from below by 
a swordfish, who drove his sharp instrument more than three 
feet up through the bottom. With rare presence of mind, with 
the butt of an oar he broke it off level with the floor before the 
fish had time to withdraw it. Fortunately, the thrust was not — 
directly upward. Had it been so, the frail boat would have been 
destroyed. 
“A Boston ship hauled up on the ways for repair, a few years 
since, presented the shank of a swordfish’s dagger, which had 
been driven considerably far into the solid oak plank. A more 
curious affair was brought to light in 1725 in overhauling His 
Majesty’s ship Leopard, from the coast of Africa. The sword 
of this marine spearsman had pierced the sheathing one inch, 
next it went through a three-inch plank, and beyond that three 
inches and a half into the firm timber. It was the opinion of the 
mechanics that it would have required nine strokes of a hammer 
weighing twenty-five pounds to drive an iron bolt of the same 
dimensions to the same depth in the hull. Yet the fish drove it 
at a single thrust. 
“On the return of the whale-ship Fortune to Plymouth, Mass., 
in 1827, the stump of a sword-blade of this fish was noticed pro- 
jecting like a cog outside, which, on being traced, had been 
driven through the copper sheathing, an inch-board under- 
