Ship-Sinking Swordfish
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Animals in Sea History by Richard King t one point in Herman Mel- fish in the Indian Ocean. Melville Rousseau in the South Pacific, forcing ville’s novel Moby-Dick, Ish- writes: “He takes umbrage at the cut the ship to make an unscheduled run mael spins a yarn about a of some ship’s keel crossing his road; to Tahiti before she sank to “have her mutiny aboard a ship that is and straightway runs a tilt at it; with wound dressed by a ship-surgeon sinking. The men fight each one mad [lunge] thrusting his Andrea with tar and oakum.” other while they desperately work Ferrara [a famous Scottish broad Foxhound crewman Frederick the pumps to keep afloat. “They sup- sword] clean through and through; Bennett described how a swordfish’s posed a sword-fish had stabbed her.” not seldom breaking it short off at bill pierced his ship’s hull—even A swordfish sinking a ship? the haft, like a bravo leaving his poi- through its protective copper sheath- If you thought that was one of gnard in the vitals of his foe.” ing—and broke off, much like what Ishmael’s jokes, it wasn’t a joke for Melville goes on to tell the true happens to a bee’s stinger. The Herman Melville. Swordfish poking story of the English ship Foxhound, swordfish bill remained lodged in the holes in ship hulls had been on the which returned to London in 1836 ship’s planks, from the South Seas author’s mind two years earlier in 1849 with a swordfish bill lodged in its hull. all the way home to England. Ben- when he published another novel The hunk of wood was removed and nett’s narrative was published in 1840. called Mardi. In this story, Melville preserved with the fish’s sword stuck Regarding Melville’s story about the devotes an entire chapter to extolling in it. Melville also spins a tale of a Rousseau, historians have found no the valor and skill of this “true warrior” swordfish that stabbed the whaler record of its sinking by swordfish in the logbook of the Rousseau. Melville made this part up. (above) An illustration in The Penny Magazine, 1835, of a billfish’s rostrum piercing the inner and outer timbers of ship’s hull, a hunk of which is still held by the British Mu- seum (This might’ve been the one Melville wrote about.). Up until the 1940s re- searchers thought it was stabbed by a swordfish, but recent analysis of the piece of wood shows it was a marlin. Note the copper sheathing at the far right! 46 SEA HISTORY 153, WINTER 2015–16 might also be that they are slashing through the schools of fish that often congregate under a slow moving hull in the open ocean. But that doesn’t seem to explain the in- teraction with Alvin or several other submersibles. Even in the prophetic science fiction novel Twenty Thou- sand Leagues Under the Sea, pub- lished two decades after Mardi, Jules Verne had his Captain Arronax report swordfish stabbing at his submarine’s glass. Perhaps indeed there might be some sort of Before the regular production of Earlier naturalists thought that sword- aggressive or defense response to steel hulls in the early 1900s, several fish stabbed their prey, which are large manmade hulls, mistaking them mariners reported swordfish “attacks” mostly smaller fish. But this doesn’t for sharks or killer whales? Author on their boats and ships—going back make much sense: how would they Richard Ellis records that Alvin pilots to the Greeks and Romans—although get the meat off the tip? Swordfish wonder if it is the light from the sub- it’s possible sailors confused the also have relatively small mouths and mersible, a reflection of the fish in swordfish with marlin or sailfish, which no teeth. From the deck of his ship the acrylic portholes, or even a sub- have bills that are more narrow and back in 1840, Frederick Bennett mersible’s similarity to a deep-sea cylindrical but have similar behaviors observed that swordfish tended to squid. and appearance. Dorymen out fishing on the North Atlantic also reported swordfish stabbing through their boats with their bills, sometimes in seeming retaliation for being hooked. More recently, swordfish have even entangled themselves with steel hulls and manmade underwater struc- tures. In 1967 off Savannah, Georgia, the pilots of the Woods Hole Ocean- ographic Institution’s submersible Alvin, at some 2,000 feet below the surface, reported that an eight-foot swordfish stabbed at their little sub- marine and got itself stuck. Techni- cians got a rope around the tail when the ship surfaced, but the sword broke off. (And for a riveting video of a swordfish stuck in a deep-sea drilling whoi courtesy platform, go to YouTube and search Alvin back at the surface with a swordfish stuck in its side. for “Swordfish Stuck in Oil Rig.”) slash back and forth through a school Herman Melville would surely be So—are these swordfish actually of smaller fish. Modern underwater pleased with our current uncertainty, trying to sink ships? Mariners and bi- footage confirms that swordfish kill even if we know of no actual sinkings ologists have never had a good un- their prey with the sharp edges of by swordfish spikes. Maybe that’s why derstanding of how swordfish actu- their bill, cutting fish into smaller the author turned to a white whale ally use their bills, which can grow up pieces that they can then can gulp instead. In the next issue: the forgot- to a third of their total length. Perhaps whole. ten art of swordfish painting? they use their gigantic rostrums to A reasonable explanation as to For past “Animals in Sea History” defend themselves against sharks. why they might stab the hull of a boat go to www.seahistory.org. SEA HISTORY 153, WINTER 2015–16 47.