Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/351



earliest voyage across the Atlantic. It consists of the arms and armor worn by the discoverer when he first set foot upon land in the New World, and the weapon of a native killed by his men before they reached the shore—the sword of a sword-fish. The names of this fish in he principal languages of Europe are simply variations of the Gladius of ancient Italy, and Xiphias, the name by which Aristotle, the father of zoology, called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. At the very inception of binomial nomenclature Linnæus called it Xiphias gladius, by which name it has been known to science ever since. The form of the sword-fish may be seen in Fig. 1. It is without scales. Its color is a rich purplish blue above, shading into silvery white beneath; the lower side of the beak is brownish purple. A sword-fish which does not exceed the average weight of a man is a small fish; the average weight is about three hundred and fifty pounds, and doubtless many attain the weight of five hundred pounds, but fish weighing above six hundred are exceptional. Newspapers are fond of recording the occurrence of giant fish, weighing fifteen hundred pounds and upward,