SWORD-FISH , SPEAR-FISH AND CUTLASS-FISH 247 
instance of accurate weighing is much more valuable. The largest one 
ever taken by Capt. Benjamin Ashby, for twenty years a sword-fish fisher¬ 
man, was killed on the shoals back of Edgartown, Mass. When salted it 
weighed 639 pounds. Its live weight must have been as much as 750 or 
800. Its sword measured nearly six feet. This was an extraordinary 
fish among the three hundred or more taken by Capt. Ashby in his long 
experience. He considers the average size to be about 250 pounds 
dressed, or 525 alive. Capt. Martin, of Gloucester, estimates the average 
size at 300 to 400 pounds. The largest known to Capt. Michaux weighed 
625. The average about Block Island he considers to be 200 pounds. 
The size of the smallest Sword-fishes taken on our coast is a subject of 
much deeper interest, for it throws light on the time and place of breed¬ 
ing. There is some difference of testimony regarding the average size, 
but all fishermen with whom I have talked agree that very small ones do 
not find their way into our shore waters. Numerous very small specimens 
have, however, been already taken by the Fish Commission at sea, off our 
middle and southern coast. 
Capt. John Rowe has seen one which did not weigh more than 75 
pounds when taken out of the water. 
Capt. R. H. Hurlbert killed near Block Island, in July, 1877, one 
which weighed 50 pounds, and measured about two feet without its sword. 
Capt. Ashby’s smallest weighed about 25 pounds when dressed ; this he 
killed off Noman’s Land. He never killed another which weighed less 
than 100. He tells me that a Bridgeport smack had one weighing 16 
pounds (or probably 24 when alive), and measuring eighteen inches with¬ 
out its sword. 
In August, 1878, a small specimen of the mackerel-shark, Lamna cor- 
nubico , was captured at the mouth of Gloucester Harbor. In its nostril 
was sticking the sword, about three inches long, of a young Sword-fish. 
When this was pulled out the blood flowed freely, indicating that the 
wound was recent. The fish to which this sword belonged cannot have 
exceeded ten or twelve inches in length. Whether the small Sword-fish 
met with its misfortune in our waters, or whether the shark brought this 
trophy from beyond the sea, is an unsolved problem. 
Lutken speaks of a very young individual taken in the Atlantic, latitude 
32 0 50' N., longitude 74 0 19' W. This must be about 150 miles southeast 
of Cape Hatteras. 
