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In the West Indies and Florida the scabbard-fish or silvery hairy-tail, Trichiurus lepturus, a form allied to the Xiphias, though not resembling it closely in external appearance, is often called "swordfish." The body of this fish is shaped like the blade of a saber, and its skin has a bright, metallic luster like that of polished steel, hence the name.
Richard Hill states that in Jamaica this species is much esteemed, and is fished for assiduously in a "hole," as it is called that is, a deep portion of the waters off Fort Augusta. This is the best fishing-place for the cutlass-fish, Trichiurus. The fishing takes place before day; all lines are pulled in as fast as they are thrown out, with the certainty that the cutlass has been hooked.
Several instances were related to me in which these fish had thrown themselves from the water into rowboats, a feat which might be very easily performed by a lithe, active species like the Trichiurus. A small one fell into a boat crossing the mouth of the Arlington River, where the water is nearly fresh. Many individuals of the same species are taken every year at the mouth of the St.
The cutlass-fish, Trichiurus lepturus, unfortunately known in eastern Florida and at Pensacola as the swordfish; at New Orleans, in the St. John's River, and at Brunswick, Georgia, it is known as the "silver eel"; on the coast of Texas as "saber-fish," while in the Indian River region it is called the "skip-jack."
Some writers believed the allied species, Trichiurus haumela, found in the Indian Ocean and Archipelago and in various parts of the Pacific, to be specifically the same. The cutlass-fish is abundant in the St. John's River, Florida, in the Indian River region, and in the Gulf of Mexico.
In consequence, the skin of the animal is constantly covered with a mucous matter, which, as Volta has proved, conducts electricity twenty or thirty times better than pure water. It appears uncertain whether the Trichiurus indicus has electrical properties or not. See Cuvier's Regne Animal volume 2.
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