SWORD-FISH , SPEAR-FISH AND CUTLASS-FISH. 
249 
ency. Its flavor is by many considered fine, and is not unlike that of the 
bluefish. Its color is gray. The meat of the young fish is highly prized 
on the Mediterranean, and is said to be perfectly white, compact, and of 
delicate flavor. Sword-fish are usually cut up into steaks—thick slices 
across the body—and may be broiled or boiled. 
The apparatus ordinarily employed for the capture of the Sword-fish is 
simple in the extreme. It is a harpoon with detachable head. When 
the fish is struck, the head of the harpoon remains in the body of the fish, 
and carries with it a light rope, which is either made fast or held by a man 
in a small boat, or is attached to some kind of a buoy, which is towed 
through the water by the struggling fish, and which marks its whereabouts 
after death. 
The harpoon consists of a pole 15 or 16 feet in length, usually of hickory 
or some other hard wood, upon which the bark has been left, so that the 
harpooner may have a firmer hand-grip. This pole is from an inch and a 
half to two inches in diameter, and at one end is provided with an iron 
rod, or “ shank,” about two feet long and five-eighths of an inch in 
diameter. This “ shank ” is fastened to the pole by means of a conical 
or elongated, cup-like expansion at one end, which fits over the sharpened 
end of the pole, to which it is secured by screws or spikes. A light line 
extends from one end of the pole to the point where it joins the “ shank,” 
and in this line is tied a loop, by which is made fast another short line 
which secures the pole to the vessel or boat, so that when it is thrown at 
the fish it cannot be lost. 
Upon the end of the “ shank” fits the head of the harpoon, known by 
the names Sword-fish iron , lily-iron , and Indian-dart. The form of this 
weapon has undergone much variation. The fundamental idea may very 
possibly have been derived from the Indian fish-dart, numerous specimens 
of which are in the National Museum, from various tribes of Indians of New 
England, British America, and the Pacific. However various the modifica¬ 
tions may have been, the similarity of the different shapes is no less note¬ 
worthy from the fact that all are peculiarly American. In the enormous col¬ 
lection of fishery implements of all lands in the late exhibition at Berlin, 
nothing of the kind could be found. What is known to whalers as a toggle- 
harpoon is a modification of the lily-iron, but so greatly changed by the ad¬ 
dition of a pivot by which the head of the harpoon is fastened to the shank 
that it can hardly be regarded as the same weapon. The lily-iron is, in princi- 
