Volume 37, Plate XII / Ichthyology (Fish)

Plain Bonito & Sword-Fish

Auxis vulgaris & Xiphias gladius

1. The Plain Bonito. Named the Plain Bonito for its plain uniform colour against the Striped and Belted kinds, this handsome mackerel-like fish was added to the British Fauna from two Norfolk specimens taken in mackerel-nets in 1839. Reaching eighteen inches and nearly cylindrical, it is mottled with two shades of indigo blue above, silvery white below, with greyish corselet and dark grey fins; weighing no more than six pounds, it spawns in August and bears deep red flesh reckoned sour and indigestible.
2. The Sword-Fish. Known in nearly every tongue for the cutting, pointed sword projecting from its muzzle, this great fish reaches ten or twelve feet and rarely eighteen or twenty, dusky blue above and silvery white below beneath a rough skin, with no jaw teeth but velvet-like teeth in the gullet. A native chiefly of the Mediterranean, it wanders northward along Europe and is taken occasionally about Britain, attacking whales and even ships; the white flesh of the young is compact and excellent.