ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 139 
salted. Fishermen had before that been very much afraid of 
them, but afterwards a good many were caught. 
THE CAPTURE OF THE SWORDFISH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, 
M. Victor Meunier, in his treatise ‘““ Les Grandes Peches,” p. 
141, describes the various methods formerly and at present in 
use in the fisheries in the Mediterranean. The Greeks were ac- 
customed to use boats with projecting bows, modeled to resem- 
ble a swordfish, and painted with its peculiar colors. This the 
unsuspecting fish would approach, thinking to meet one of its 
own kind. The fishermen, taking advantage of the mistake, 
would pierce it through and through with their lances. A\I- 
though surprised, the swordfish would defend itself with vigor, 
striking the treacherous boat with its sword and endangering its 
safety, while the fishermen strove to seize it by the head and, if 
possible, to cut off its sword. Having overcome their captive, 
they would fasten it behind their boat and carry it ashore. Op- 
pian compared this method of fishing to a military strategem. 
This ruse was known also to the Romans, and in their time the 
swordfishery was one of the most important. They also cap- 
tured these fish in madragues, in which they were easily entangled 
while pursuing tunnies and other fishes of the mackerel tribe. 
“Although he is able to break the nets,” said Oppian, “he 
shrinks from it; he fears some snare, and his timidity counsels 
him ill ; he ends by remaining a prisoner within the ring of the 
net, and becomes the prey of the fishermen, who with united 
effort drag him to the shore.” This does not always occur, to 
be sure, for often, to the grief of his would-be captors, he breaks 
the walls of his sepulcher, liberating also the other fishes buried 
with him. 
There is at the present day a fishery in the Straits of Messina, 
continuing on the Calabrian shore from the middle of April to 
the latter part of June; on the Sicilian shore from the first of 
July to the end of September. The Calabrian fish appear to 
approach by the Pharos, the Sicilian ones by the southern en- 
trance of the straits. This summer fishery has for its object the 
capture of the large fish, which are killed with a lance. The 
boats used are about eighteen feet long, four feet deep, and 
