Swordfishes are common on both shores of the Atlantic wherever mackerel run. They do not breed on our shores, but probably do so in the Mediterranean and other warm seas. They are rare off the California coast, but five records existing (Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, San Diego, off Cerros Island). The writer has seen two large individuals in the market of Yokohama, but it is scarcely known in Japan. As a food-fish, the swordfish is one of the best, its dark-colored oily flesh, though a little coarse, making most excellent steaks. Its average weight on our coast is about 300 pounds, the maximum 625.
The swordfish undergoes great change in the process of development, the very young having the head armed with rough spines and in nowise resembling the adult.
Fossil swordfishes are unknown, or perhaps cannot be distinguished from remains of Istiophoridæ.
CHAPTER XVII
CAVALLAS AND PAMPANOS
The Pampanos: Carangidæ.—We next take up the great family of Pampanos, Carangidæ, distinguished from the Scombridæ as a whole by the shorter, deeper body, the fewer and larger vertebræ, and by the loss of the provision for swift movement in the open sea characteristic of the mackerels and their immediate allies. A simple mark of the Carangidæ is the presence of two separate spines in front of the anal fin. These spines are joined to the fin in the young. All of the species undergo considerable changes with age, and almost all are silvery in color with metallic blue on the back.
Most like the true mackerel are the "leather-jackets," or "runners," forming the genera Scomberoides and Oligoplites. Scomberoides of the Old World has the body scaly, long, slender, and fitted for swift motion; Scomberoides sancti-petri is a widely diffused species, and others are found in Polynesia. In the New World genus Oligoplites the scales are reduced to linear ridges imbedded in the skin at different angles. Oligoplites saurus is a common dry and bony fish abounding in the West Indies and ranging north in summer to Cape Cod.
Naucrates ductor, the pilot-fish, or romero, inhabits the open sea, being taken—everywhere rarely—in Europe, the West Indies, Hawaii, and Japan. It is marked by six black cross-bands. Its tail has a keel, and it reaches a length of about two feet. In its development it undergoes considerable change, its first dorsal fin being finally reduced to disconnected spines.
The amber-fishes, forming the genus Seriola, are rather robust fishes, with the anal fin much shorter than the soft dorsal. The sides of the tail have a low, smooth keel. From a yellow streak obliquely across the head in some species they receive their Spanish name of coronado. The species are numerous, found in all warm seas, of fair quality as food, and range in length from two to six feet.
