ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 141 
pierces it with his sword, so the fishermen stand on their guard, 
especially if the animal is large and active. 
The young fish are captured in nets about three hundred feet 
long, called palimadaris. These are stretched between two boats 
with lateen sails, moving along, entangling in their meshes 
everything which they touch. Spallanzani protested vehemently 
against this fishery. It is carried on from October to March. 
Oppian describes a method of capture used in the Mediter- 
ranean. A bait was fastened with a sliding noose to the line at 
a distance above the naked hook, and the whole was so contrived 
that when the swordfish seized the bait with its mouth the hook 
seized it from behind with great force. This story is declared 
by writers of the present day to have been fanciful and without 
foundation. 
I am indebted to Mr. Frederick W. True for the following 
translation from Prof. Adolfo Targioni Tozetti’s essay on “ The 
Fisheries of Italy,’’ published in 1870,* which gives briefly a 
description of the methods now employed in the vicinity of Mes- 
sina and elsewhere on the Italian coast :+ 
“Swordfish are taken from time to time, together with the 
tunnies, in the fonnare ;{ but hook-and-line and gill-net fisheries 
are also carried on, the methods of which we may describe 
somewhat at length. 
“Two very distinct fisherises are prosecuted—one by day, the 
other by night. The former is carried on by means of peculiarly 
constructed nets celled palamitare ; the latter by the use of har- 
poons, or draffniere, as they are called. The harpoon fishery is 
prosecuted in the Straits of Messina, on the coasts of Calabria 
-and Sicily, and among the Eolian Islands. 
‘“‘ The fish appear earliest along the coasts of Calabria, between 
Givia, Tauro, Palmi, Bagnara, and Scilla, and hence it is in these 
* La Pesca nei Mari d’Italia e la Pesca all’Estro Esercitata do Italiani. <Catalogo degli 
Espositori e delle core esposte Sizione Italiana, Esposizione Internazioneale di Pesce in Ber- 
lino, 1880, Firenze Spamperia Reale, 1880, pp. XV-CXxxvi. 
Swordfish Fishery—Pesca della Pesce spada, pp, 1xix-1xxiii. 
+ The author states that the material for the following article is derived from the writing 
of Duhamel, Oppian, Spallanzani and Vetrioli. 
+ A kind of pound net constructed for the capture of tunnies or horse mackerel (Orcynus 
thynnus). 
