ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 127 
Mr. E. G. Blackford writes: “ The following information I 
received from an old swordfisherman, a man whose statements 
may be relied on. The season first opens early in June in the 
neighborhood of Sandy Hook, and continues along the coast as 
far east as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Shoals until about 
the middle of September. They are said to have been caught 
as far north as Cape Sable. At the first cold wind blowing in 
September they disappear, and are not found again on the coast 
that season.”” This is the statement of a New York man. 
Capt. Benjamin Ashby, of Noank, Conn., informs me that the 
swordfish vessels of Noank and New London are accustomed to 
leave the home port about the 6th of July, and throughout the 
month they find fish most abundant between Block Island and 
Noman’s Land; in August between Noman’s Land and the 
South Shoal Light Ship. They first meet the fish twenty to 
twenty-five miles southeast of Montauk Point. In August and 
September they are found on George’s Banks. There is no fish- 
ing after the snow begins to fly. 
A little farther east is the New Bedford fleet. Capt. I. H. 
Michaux, of the schooner Yankee Bride, tells me that swordfish 
strike in about Block Island in the middle of June, and stay in 
that vicinity until the 15th or zoth of August. North of Cape 
Cod they are taken up to the zoth of October. 
The statements of Mr. John H. Thomson, of New Bedford, 
have already been quoted, but may be epitomized in this con- 
nection. From May 25thto June they are found south of Block 
Island, approaching the Vineyard Sound and the neighboring 
waters through June and to the middle of July. A little later 
they are more abundant to the southeast of Crab Ledge, and 
after August rst to the southeast of Cape Cod and George's 
Banks. 
Tne schooner Northern Eagle, of Gloucester, Capt. George 
H. Martin, when engaged in swordfishing, is accustomed to 
leave Gloucester so as to be on the ground south of Block 
Island by the roth of June, and the fish are followed as far east 
as Portland. 
Mr. Earll ascertained that the swordfish are mostly fished for 
on the coast of Maine from July rst to September rst. 
