THE SWOEDPISH AND SUCKING-FISH 



393 



of salt meat, its flesh is a delicacy. To the writer 

 it was a red-letter day when with a new artificial 

 flying-fish, fresh from the horny hand of an old 

 sailor named "Porpoise George," he caught his 

 first " Dolphin," in mid-ocean, from the deck of 

 the Golden Fleece. 



The Swordflsh' needs neither preface nor 

 introduction, for his sword serves all such pur- 

 poses. 



In the government museum at Singapore is 

 a three-inch-thick section of copper-sheathed 

 oak plank, cut from the side of a ship, which has 

 sticking through it the sword of a Swordfish. 

 Now, the material of such a sword is by no means 

 so hard that it could by ordinary means be forced 

 through three inches of the hardest kind of oak 

 planking, sheathed with copper. The fact of 

 clean penetration implies a speed of not less 

 than sixty miles per hour, and perhaps more. 

 With such locomotive powers, and such a weapon 

 for slaughter, it is fortunate that its owner has 

 not been fitted out with the teeth and appetite 

 of a killer, else the cetaceans would soon be ex- 

 terminated. 



The Swordfish well understands the offensive 

 and defensive value of his sword, and there are 

 on record many well-authenticated instances 

 wherein this pugnacious creature has driven its 

 formidable weapon through the sides or bottoms 

 of small boats, to the peril of the occupants. 

 The majority of such incidents have occurred 

 to boats regularly engaged in swordfishing, 

 which is a noteworthy industry on our Atlantic 

 coast. 



Broken swords have been found in the sides 

 and bottoms of quite a number of ships. In 1871 , 

 the fishing yacht Redhot, of New Bedford, 

 was pierced and sunk by a Swordfish which had 

 been hauled alongside to be killed. In 1875, a 

 Swordfish drove its sword through the bottom 

 of a fishing schooner off Fire Island, and stuck 

 fast. Before the fish had time to free itself by 

 breaking off its sword, the fishermen cast ropes 

 about it, and secured it. Its length was over 

 11 feet, its weight 390 pounds, and the length 

 of its sword, 3 feet 7 inches. 



The Swordfish is a food fish of very good 

 standing in New England, where it is shced 

 and salted, and widely esteemed. In 1898, the 

 total catch was 1,617,331 pounds, valued at 

 $90,130. 



The food of this fish consists of menhaden, 

 mackerel, bonitoes, bluefish, herring, whiting 

 and squids. 



The Sucklng-Fish, or Remora,^ is a high- 

 class parasite, who does much of his travelhng 

 at the expense of sharks who would eat him if 

 they could. In one of her odd freaks of merry- 

 jnaking, Nature fashioned on this creature's 

 head a large, flat disk, set crosswise with rows 

 of dehcate spines, all pointing backward. It is 

 really a pecuhar development of the first dorsal 

 fin. When the Sucking-Fish desires to travel 

 and see the sea-world, it hunts up the nearest 

 shark, swims alongside from the rear, claps its 

 head to the shark's side, and sticks fast. The 

 faster the shark glides through the water, the 

 more tightly chngs the automatic tramp. Like 

 a passenger in a Pullman sleeping-car, the Re- 

 mora can bid the world good-night, and go to 

 sleep serenely confident that he will get on in 

 the world, even while he sleeps. It is as if a 

 human tramp were provided by Nature with 

 means enabling him to cling automatically and 

 comfortably to the side of a moving freight-car, 

 instead of walking in dust and sorrow upon the 

 ties. 



The Remora is not a large fish, its usual length 

 being under two feet. Not only is it. a parasite 

 of sharks and other large fishes, but it attaches 

 itself to the sides of ships. It is said that some- 

 times sharks actually become emaciated through 

 prolonged labor in furnishing free transportation 

 for lusty Remoras. The parasite is himself a 

 good swimmer, and the best reason assignable for 

 its strange habit in chnging to sharks is its 

 desire to gather in fragments of the feast when 

 the latter makes an important killing. The 

 Remora is an inhabitant of our Atlantic coast, 

 the Gulf of Mexico, and the West Indies 

 generally, but it is not considered a food 

 fish. 



^Xiph'i-as glad'i-us. The pronunciation of the generic name is Zif'e-as. 



^ Re-mo'ra bra-chyp'ter-a. See figure on page 432, ot an individual attached to a mackerel shark. 



