120 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
miss its aim and strike the vessel’s hull. Brown-Goode 
gives almost the same account of the true Swordfish®. 
“They feed on menhaden, mackerel, bonitoes, bluefish 
and other species which swim in close schools. Their 
habits of feeding have often been described to me by 
old fishermen. They are said to rise beneath the school 
of small fish, striking to the right and left with their 
swords until they have killed a number, which they 
then proceed to devour. Menhaden have been seen 
floating at the surface which have been cut nearly in 
twain by. a blow of a sword. Mr. John H. Thomson 
remarks that he has seen them apparently throw the 
fish in the air, catching them as they fall. 
“Capt. Benjamin Ashby says that they feed on 
mackerel, herring, whiting * 6 , and menhaden c . He has 
found half a bucketful of small fish of these kinds in 
the stomach of one Swordfish. He has seen them in 
the act of feeding. They rise perpendicularly out of 
the water until the sword and two-thirds of the re- 
mainder of the body are exposed to view. He has 
seen a school of herring crowding together at the sur- 
face on George’s Banks as closely as they could be 
packed. A Swordfish came up through the dense mass 
and fell flat over on its side, striking many fish with 
the sides of its sword. He has at one time picked up 
as much as a bushel of herrings thus killed by a Sword- 
fish on George’s Banks.” We know, too, that the 
Swordfish also feeds on the Cuttle-fish: Fleming found 
remains of Loligo sagittata in its stomach. 
The peaceful disposition of the Swordfish may also 
be observed when together with the Tunny it enters 
the madrague or tonnaro of the Mediterranean fisher- 
men. Sometimes it may tear the meshes of the lateral 
nets of the madrague with its sword and thus give the 
Tunnies a way of escape; but it is often taken together 
with them. It seems to be fairly sociable, and one 
often finds Swordfish roving in pairs (male and female?). 
The only information we have of the spawning-season 
is from the Mediterranean, where it is said to occur 
in spring and the beginning of summer; but we have 
no exact statements on this point. That it also spawns 
in the open sea, is shown by the finds of small fry, 
mentioned by Lutken, in the Atlantic and the Indian 
Ocean. In the Mediterranean young, but fully deve- 
loped, Swordfish, weighing half-a-pound or more, are 
fairly common, and are often sold in the Italian fish- 
markets, especially in Sicily and at Genoa. Their 
flesh is more highly esteemed than that of the larger 
ones. 
The Swordfish often attains a length of 12 feet or 
even more; but specimens of a much larger size must 
be considered at least as extraordinary exceptions, if 
not as altogether fabulous. Brown-Goode, however, 
mentions a specimen of uncommonly large size, which 
according to Ashby’s measurements had a sword nearly 
6 ft. long and should thus have had a body almost 
18 feet in length and have weighed between 750 and 
800 lbs. It is known in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic 
as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian 
Ocean, and the Pacific (off New Zealand). In the At- 
lantic it is fairly common off the coast of the United 
States of North America; but only full-grown specimens 
have been taken there: Captain Ashby is said to have 
caught 108 SAvordfish in one year. On the European 
side it is not common even off the English coast, and 
farther north it occurs still more seldom, though it 
has been found in as high a latitude as West Finmark. 
HoAvever, it can scarcely be considered as being rare 
in Scandinavia, especially as it now and then enters 
the Baltic and Avanders as far as Gothland' 7 . Both Nils- 
son and Lilljeborg state, as a proof of its common 
occurrence off the south coast of Scania, that forty or 
fifty years ago, between Malmo and Skanor, one might 
very often see the dried tail of a SAvordfish set up as 
a weathercock on a fisherman’s cottage. According to 
Mobius and Heincke it is oftenest in autumn that it 
Avanders into the Baltic, as far as the coasts of Prussia 
and Russia. Ekstrom and Malm have each described 
one of tAvo specimens of the Swordfish taken recently 
° 
in Bohusl&n, the one in Aby Fjord and the other off 
Grebbestad: Cederstrom says that the Swordfish is 
fairly rare off the north of Bohns! an. Our figure is 
coloured from a female 211 cm. in length, which Avas 
caught on the 21st. of October, 1887, in Stahrekil (5 
miles from Stromstad), and sent to the Royal Museum 
by Mr. C. A. Hansson. 
a Mater, etc., p. 41; Industr. etc., p. 349. 
6 Not our European Whiting. 
c A Swordfish 2'43 metres in length, which was caught on the 1st of October, 1882, in a mackerel-net in a bay between the coast 
of Schleswig and Alsen, had about 60 Herrings in its stomach (M6b., Hcke, 1. c.). 
d LindsteOm, 1. c. and Lilljeborg, 1. c., p. 388. 
