144 FISH—CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
furnished with an iron seven inches in length. The iron has 
two wings, and is constructed in such a manner that when 
it strikes the fish the point enters the flesh and the wings spread 
in the wound.* A rope, or frotese, often six hundred feet or 
more in length, is fastened to the harpoon head, so that it may 
be recovered when the fish, weakened by loss of blood, is cap- 
tured and brought into the boat. 
‘A short warp is tied to the staff of the harpoon, by which 
when the head is detached it is brought back into the boat. Af- 
ter the fish is struck, the /outro puts back to the station, leaving 
the chase and capture of the wounded fish to a second boat. 
Usually he is easily captured, but sometimes by dashing against 
the boat or by other movements he manages to free himself 
and make his escape. 
“A fishery very similar to that carried on at the present time 
was described by Polibius, according to Strabo, more than two 
thousand years ago. The account of the fishery at Messina 
given by Oppiant is somewhat fanciful and inaccurate, but in 
the last century Spallanzani gave a more strictly technical de- 
scription of it.{ Recently the fishery has been accurately de- 
scribed in elegant Latin verse by Vetrioli.§ 
THE CAPTURE OF THE SWORDFISH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, 
“The following table gives the number of fishermen, and 
boats, engaged in the swordfish fishery on the Sicilian and Cala- 
brian coasts : 
1. Lhe Harpoon Fishery., 
Calabria. Sicily. 
Eeeoc. oats. (ortelnche)..’; =< see eee 6 52 
spall Boats (lOULTI)<:. 52°. 5.0. 3 eee ene 26 52 
Binal boats (barche}. oh). 0. ae wncietst haan ane 52 
SETI 2s. coke ave css 2.2 hy 275 384 
* This iron resembles closely the American lily-iron. 
t Oppiano, Deila Pesca, lib. iii. 
¢ Spallanzani, Niaggi alle due Sicillie ecc. vol. iv., p. 308, et seq. 
§ Vetrioli, Xiphias Carmen, Naples, 1870. 
