SWORD-FISHES. 
359 
should like to see cleared up by actual observation, and that is, in what manner 
a sword-fish manages to remove from his weapon a cod, or other fish, which it 
has spitted. Instances are on record of these fish attacking and transfixing 
bathers; one such having occurred in the estuary of the Severn about the year 1830. 
\\ riting of one of the Pacific species, Colonel Pike observes that “ this fish is a 
beautiful sight in the water. It has a habit of lying sunning itself on the surface 
when undisturbed, its dorsal fin is fully expanded and acting as a sail (and when 
needed it can propel itself at great speed); but it is only in the calmest weather it 
can be thus seen. It is frequently caught in deep water with hook and line, and 
when near the surface it is speared.” When it feels the hook, or spear, a sword¬ 
fish takes tremendous leaps in the air, and if care be not exercised, will jump into 
SPOTTED INDIAN SWOED-FISH (R nat. size). 
the boat of the fishermen. In the South Sea Islands young sword-fish are caught 
in strong nets, although no net will hold a fish of 6 feet in length. One of the 
most recent instances of a sword-fish attacking a ship occurred in the year 1874, 
on the voyage between Bombay and Calcutta. On this subject Frank Buckland 
writes that there is in the Museum of the College of Surgeons a section of the 
bow of a South-Sea whaler, in which “ is seen the end of the sword of a sword¬ 
fish, measuring 1 foot in length and 5 inches in circumference. At one single 
blow the fish had lunged his sword through, and completely transfixed thirteen 
and a half inches of solid timber. The sword had, of course, broken off in the 
hole, and thus prevented a dangerous leak in the ship. In the British Museum is 
a second specimen of a ship’s side with the sword of a sword-fish fixed in it, and 
which has penetrated no less than twenty-two inches into the timber. When His 
Majesty’s ship Leopard was repairing, in 1795, after her return from the coast of 
