No one who has seen a sword-fish or a good picture of one, soon forgets the great muscular body, like that of a mackerel, a thousand times magnified, the crescent shaped tail, measuring three feet or more from tip to tip, the scimitar-like fins on the back and breasts, the round, hard, protruding eyes, as large as small foot balls, and the sword-like snout, two, three or four feet in length, protruding, caricature like, from between its eyes. This feature has been recognized in almost every European language, and while many other fishes have names by the score, this has in reality but one. The “Sword-fish” of our own tongue, the “Zwaard Fis” of Holland, the Italian “Sifio” and “Pesce-Pada,” the Spaniard’s “Espada,” and the French “Espadin,” “Dend” and “Epee de Mer,” are variations upon a single theme, repetitions of the “Gladius” of ancient Italy, and “Xiphias,” the name by which Aristotle, the father of Zoölogy called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. The French “Empereur,” and the “Imperador” of the Spanish West Indies carry out the same.
A vessel cruising in search of sword-fish proceeds to the fishing grounds and sails hither and thither, wherever the abundance of small fish indicates that they ought to be found. Vessels which are met are hailed and asked whether sword-fish have been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship’s course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can readily descry the tell-tale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles.
The sword-fish has two cousins, the spear-fish and the sail-fish, which bear to it a close family resemblance. Their bodies, however, are lighter, their outlines more graceful, and their swords more round and slender. The latter has an immense sail-like back fin, which it throws out of the water while swimming near the surface. An English naval officer, Sir Stamford Raffles, wrote home from Singapore in 1822: “The only amusing discovery we have recently made is that of a sailing fish, called by the natives Ikan layer, of about ten or twelve feet long, which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat, and with considerable swiftness. I have sent a set of the sails home, as they are beautifully cut, and form a model for a fast sailing boat. When a school of these are under sail together they are frequently mistaken for a fleet of native boats.”
While there is but one species of sword-fish which occurs in the tropical and temperate parts of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, about New Zealand, and in the eastern Pacific from Cape Horn to California there are several kinds of sail-fishes, and at least eight species of spear-fish. The naturalists of the United States Fish Commission have recently discovered that we have along our Atlantic coast a fine species of sail-fish, and one or two of spear-fishes, in addition to the true sword-fish, which has been known to exist here since the days of the Spanish explorers.
It seems somewhat strange that no reference to the sword-fish is to be found in the narratives of the voyages of Columbus. The earliest allusion in American literature occurs in Josselyn’s “Account of two Voyages to New England,” printed in 1674, in the following passage:
“The twentieth day we saw a great number of sea-bats or owles, called also flying-fish; they are about the bigness of a whiting, with four tinsel wings, with which they fly as long as they are wet, when pursued by other fishes. In the afternoon we saw a great fish called the Vehuella, or Sword-fish, having a long, strong and sharp fin like a sword-blade on the top of his head, with which he pierced our ship, and broke it off with striving to get loose; one of our sailors dived and brought it aboard.”
Although sword-fish were sold in the New York fish market as early as 1817, it was not until 1839 that the writers in ichthyology consented to consider it an American fish.
The sword-fish comes into our waters in pursuit of food. At least this is the most probable explanation of their movements, since the duties of reproduction appear to be performed elsewhere. Like the horse-mackerel, the bonito, the blue-fish and the squeteagus, they pursue and prey upon the schools of menhaden and mackerel which are so abundant in the summer months. “When you see sword-fish, you may know that mackerel are about!” said one old fisherman to the writer. “Where you see the fin-back whale, following food,” said another, “there you find sword-fish.” They feed chiefly upon fish which swim crowded together in close schools, rising among them from beneath and striking to the right and left with their swords until they have killed a number, which they then proceed to devour. An old fisherman described to the writer a sword-fish in the act of feeding in a dense school of herring, rising perpendicularly out of the water until its sword, with a large portion of its body, was exposed, then falling flat over on its side, striking many fish as it fell, and leaving a bushel of dead ones floating at the surface.
They are most abundant in the region of Cape Cod, or between Montaulk Point and the eastern part of George’s Banks, and during July and August, though some make their appearance in the latter part of May, and a few linger until snow falls. They are seen at the surface only on quiet summer days, in the morning before ten or eleven, and in the afternoon after four o’clock. Old fishermen say that they rise when the mackerel rise, and follow them down when they go.