THE SWORDFISH 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 Swordfish 1 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 Rcdliot, 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 sliced 
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 Sucking-Fish, or Remora , 2 is a high- 
class parasite, who does much of his travelling 
at the expense of sharks who would eat him if 
they could. In one of her odd freaks of merry- 
making, Nature fashioned on this creature’s 
head a large, flat disk, set crosswise with rows 
of delicate spines, all pointing backward. It is 
really a peculiar 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 clings 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. clinging 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. 
1 Xiph'i-ns glad'i-us. The pronunciation of the generic name is Zif'e-as. 
2 Re-mo' r a bra-chyp'ter-a. See figure on page 432, ot an individual attached to a mackerel shark. 
