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Swordfishes
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THESE are fishes of great size, with long, naked body; upper jaw very much prolonged, forming a "sword," which is flattened horizontally; no teeth in the adult; dorsal fin very long; no ventral fins.
The single species of this family is Xiphias gladius, the common swordfish, or espada, a fish of very wide distribution. It occurs on both coasts of the Atlantic, being most frequent between Cuba and Cape Breton; not rare off Cape Cod and on the Grand Banks; rather common in Southern Europe. It occurs also in the Pacific, and is occasionally taken about the Santa Barbara Islands. An enormous fish of the open seas, rivalling the largest sharks in size, and of immense strength of muscle.
The swordfish attracted the attention of the earliest voyagers to America. As early as 1674, Josselyn, in his "Account of Two Voyages to New England," wrote: "And in the afternoon we saw a great fish called the Vehuella or Sword-fish, having a long, strong and sharp finn, 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."
The maximum size of the swordfish is 600 to 800 pounds, though examples of more than 400 pounds are not often seen.
The species is rather abundant for so large a fish. Off the New England Coast 3,000 to 6,000 of these fish are taken every year. Twenty-five or more are sometimes seen in a single day. One fisherman killed 108 in one year.
The food of the swordfish consists chiefly of the common schooling species of fishes, such as the menhaden, herring, mackerel, bonito and bluefish. They are said to rise beneath a school of small fish, striking to the right and left with their swords until they have killed a number, which they then proceed to devour