A similar though less impressive memorial hangs in the great hall of the Bremen Rathaus, side by side with the clumsy ship-models, the paintings of stranded whales, and the trophies of armor which illustrate the history of the old Hanse-town (Free City). It is a painting, of the size of life, of a sword-fish, taken by Bremen fishermen in the river Weser, with a legend inscribed beneath in letters of the most angular type: “ANNO . 1696 . DEN . 18 . JULI . IST . DIESER . FISCH . EIN . SCHWERTFISCH . GENANNT . VON . DIESER . STADT . FISCHERN . IN . DER . WESER . GEFANGEN,” ETC. This swift, mysterious animal seems at a period remote in antiquity to have literally thrust itself into the notice of mankind by means of its attacks upon the boats in the Mediterranean. Pliny knew it and wrote: “The sword-fish, called in Greek Xiphias, that is to say in Latin, Gladius, a sword, hath a beake or bill sharp-pointed, wherewith he will drive through the sides and planks of a ship, and bouge them so that they shall sink withall,” and the naturalists of the sixteenth century knew almost as much of its habits as those of the present day. Few fishes are so difficult to observe, and a student may, like the writer of this article, spend summer after summer in the attempt to study them with few results, other than the sight of a few dozen back-fins cutting through the water, a chance to measure and dissect a few specimens, and perhaps the experience of having the side of his boat pierced by one of their ugly swords. Yet, while little is known of their habits, few fishes are so generally known by their external characters. No one who has seen a sword-fish or a good picture of one, soon forgets the great muscular body, like that of a mackerel, a thousand times magnified, the crescent shaped tail, measuring three feet or more from tip to tip, the scimitar-like fins on the back and breasts, the round, hard, protruding eyes, as large as small foot balls, and the sword-like snout, two, three or four feet in length, protruding, caricature like, from between its eyes. This feature has been recognized in almost every European language, and while many other fishes have names by the score, this has in reality but one. The “Sword-fish” of our own tongue, the “Zwaard Fis” of Holland, the Italian “Sifio” and “Pesce-Pada,” the Spaniard’s “Espada,” and the French “Espadin,” “Dend” and “Epee de Mer,” are variations upon a single theme, repetitions of the “Gladius” of ancient Italy, and “Xiphias,” the name by which Aristotle, the father of Zoölogy called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. The French “Empereur,” and the “Imperador” of the Spanish West Indies carry out the same.