SCOMBEEID^. 221 



Foreign spadas are often on a very grand scale, and 

 large specimens occasionally visit our own coasts ; one 

 individual, stranded on the Essex coast, is said to have 

 measured ten feet, a third of which, in accordance with 

 the usual proportion observed between fish and snout, 

 was blade; this, however, is small as compai-ed with 

 other recorded specimens elsewhere; several naturalists 

 speak of large Mediterranean spadas, weighing four 

 hundred pounds, and measuring from twelve to fourteen 

 feet, and Cuvier supposes eighteen or twenty feet not to 

 be at all beyond their known powers of development. 

 Spadas, however, of such a size are very rare, from four 

 to six feet being the usual run of those taken off the 

 Trinacrian coast and displayed in the fish-markets of 

 Sicily. The flesh, which is much esteemed by the 

 better classes at Palermo, is dressed in almost as many 

 m.odes as that of the thunny, and fetches a higher price : 

 during our sojourn there it was as two to one, the price 

 of the first averaging fourpcnce per rotolo, while the 

 irpoTOfwX of the latter were disposed of at twopence or 

 twopence-halfpenny. The fibre is invitingly white, and 

 the round segments look, as they lie* in rows along the 

 stalls, just Hke so many fillets of veal, to which meat 

 they bear some resemblance also at table. 



The weapon of the sword-fish being very destructive 

 to nets, the harpoon has always been a favourite method 

 for capturing large specimens. Oppian records that the 

 sailors of the Tyrrhine Sea constructed with this view 

 certain light skiffs, built to resemble xiphias, which these 

 dull fish, mistaking for so many new acquaintance of 

 their own species, approach in foolish confidence, and not ■ 

 perceiving the mistake till it is too late to retreat, allow 

 themselves to be surrounded, and shortly afterwards de- 

 spatched by the harpooners who scull the canoes. 



To fisliy form, th' artistic builders lend 

 Mimetic fins, and wooden sword protend. 



