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AMERICAN FISHES . 
the ceiling one and a half inches white oak. The sword projected two 
inches through the ceiling, on the inside of the ‘ after run.’ It struck by 
a butt on the outside, which caused the leak. They took out and replaced 
a piece of the plank, and proceeded on their voyage.” 
The Sail-fish, Histiophorus gladius (with H americaniis and II. orien- 
talis , questionable species, and H. pulchellus and H. immaculatus , young), 
occurs in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Malay Archipelago, and south at 
least as far as the Cape of Good Hope, latitude 35 0 S.; in the Atlantic on 
the coast of Brazil, latitude 30° S., to the Equator, and north to Southern 
New England, latitude 42 0 N.; in the Pacific to Southwestern Japan, 
latitude 30° to io° N. In a general way the range may be said to be in 
tropical and temperate seas, between latitude 30° S. and 40° N., and in 
the western parts of those seas. 
The first allusion to this genus occurs in Piso’s “ Historia Naturalis 
Brasilise,” printed at Amsterdam in 1648. In this book maybe found an 
identifiable though rough figure of the American species, accompanied by 
a few lines of description, which, though good, when the fact that they 
were written in the seventeenth century is brought to mind, are of no value 
for critical comparison. 
The name given to the Brazilian Sail-fish by Marcgrave, the talented 
young German who described the fishes in the book referred to. and who 
afterwards sacrificed his life in exploring the unknown fields of American 
zoology, was Guebucn brasiliensilms. The use of the name Guebucu is 
interesting, since it gives a clew to the derivation of the name “ Boohoo,” 
by which this fish, and probably the Spear-fishes, are known to English- 
speaking sailors in the tropical Atlantic. 
Sail-fishes were observed in the East Indies by Renard and Valentijn, 
explorers of that region from 1680 to 1720, and by other eastern voyagers. 
No species of the genus was, however, systematically described until 1786, 
when a stuffed specimen from the Indian Ocean, eight feet long, was taken 
to London, where it still remains in the collections of the British Museum. 
From this specimen M. Broussonet prepared a description, giving it the 
name Scomber gladms, rightly regarding it as a species allied to the 
mackerel. 
From the time of Marcgrave until 1872 it does not appear that any 
zoologist had any opportunity to study a Sail-fish from America, or even 
from the Atlantic ; vet in Gunther’s Catalogue, the name H. cimericanus 
