14
Translation, 1834) does not mention the presence of teeth. This, if correctly stated, would place the specimen in the genus Histiophorus, as the entire interior of what may be considered the buccal cavity, is covered with almost microscopic teeth, so placed, that the food (supposed by me to consist chiefly of the cuttle fish), when seized or impaled, cannot escape. I would add, that Dr. Günther, in his description of the specific characters of the Histiophorus, as distinguishing it from Xiphias, says "small teeth in the jaws and on the palate bones; none on the vomer." Now the teeth, in the specimen before the Society, are developed on the mucous membrane covering the hard palate and lower jaw, and are, in no sense, in the jaws; so that if the specimen described by Dr. Günther had been macerated, and the osseous surfaces denuded of the mucous membrane and periosteum, there would not have been the vestige either of teeth or socket. I find from a specimen of the eel and hapuka, now on the table, that the system of dentition strictly resembles that of the SwordFish (Histiophorus). The teeth are so placed as to be pointed from before backwards, allowing the food, or the finger, to pass towards the throat without obstruction, but rendering a retreat impossible, at least in the living animal, when feeding, and probably very hungry. This is probably intended to compensate for the want of cutting (incisor), holding (canine), grinding (molar) teeth. The muscles acting on the jaws (temporal and masseter) are of enormous size, red in colour, and resembling the muscles in the carnivorous mammalia.
When I left Scotland, in 1840, there was, in my brother's private museum, undoubtedly the finest and most extensive collection of the skeletons of fishes in Europe, amongst others, the skeleton of a Sword-Fish. The specimen was taken in the Firth of Forth, and after exhibition, was purchased by my brother. A hurried examination of the anatomy was made, and I think plaster casts of the viscera taken—which, I may remark, is an admirable mode of preserving. The preparation of the skeleton was handed over to me. It proved rather a heavy affair, owing to the complete saturation of every texture with a fine fluid oil. It was too large for any of the glazed cases in the museum, and was accordingly placed on the top of the cases. I may state that this skeleton always appeared to me to present rather an ideal, than a natural, form, as it seemed out of proportion, and deficient in framework.
The fragments I have now presented to the Colonial Museum, are part, therefore, of the second specimen that has come under my personal notice.
In Dr. Günther's Catalogue, Vol. ii., 1860, the Xiphiidæ form the eighteenth family of the Acanthopterygian, or soft-finned fishes, divided into two genera, containing eight species. The British Museum appears to possess only the following specimens:—
I. Xiphias.
Gladius—
(a.) Seven feet long. Stuffed. Margate.
(b.) Half-grown. Stuffed.
(c.) Upper jaw of a large specimen.
(d.) Six inches long. Not a good specimen. Caught in Long. 22° W., Lat. 2° N. Presented by J. B. Jukes, Esq.
II. Histiophorus.
Herchellii—
(a.) Eleven feet long. Stuffed. Table Bay. Purchased of Mr. Smuts. Type of the species.
(b.) Head (thirty-seven inches long).
(c.) Anterior portion of a skull of a specimen of the same size.
