d in Amsterdam in 1648. In this book may be found an
identical, though rough, figure of the American species, accompanied by
a few lines of description, which, though good, when the fact that they
were written in the seventeenth century is brought to mind, are of no
value for critical comparison.

The name given to the Brazilian sailfish by Marcgrave, the talented
young German who described the fish in the book referred to, and who
afterward sacrificed his life in exploring the unknown fields of
American zoology, is interesting, since it gives a clue to the
derivation of the name "boohoo," by which this fish, and probably
spear-fish, are known to English-speaking sailors in the tropical
Atlantic.

Sailfish were observed in the East Indies by Renard and Valentijn,
explorers of that region from 1680 to 1720, and by other Eastern
voyagers. No species of the genus was, however, systematically described
until 1786, when a stuffed specimen from the Indian Ocean, eight feet
long, was taken to London, where it still remains in the collections of
the British Museum. From this specimen M. Broussonet prepared a
description, giving it the name _Scomber gladius_, rightly regarding it
as a species allied to the mackerel.

From the time of Marcgrave until 1872 it does not appear that any
zoologist had any opportunity to study a sailfish from America or even
the Atlantic; yet in Gunther's Catalogue, the name _H. americanus_ is
discarded and the species of America is assumed to be identical with
that of the Indian Ocean.

The materials in the National Museum consist of a skeleton and a painted
plaster cast of the specimen taken near Newport, Rhode Island, in
August, 1872, and given to Professor Baird by Mr. Samuel Powell, of
Newport. No others were observed in our waters until March, 1878, when,
according to Mr. Neyle Habersham, of Savannah, Georgia, two were taken
by a vessel between Savannah and Indian River, Florida, and were brought
to Savannah, where they attracted much attention in the market. In
1873, according to Mr. E. G. Blackford, a specimen in a very mutilated
condition was brought from Key West to New York City.

No observations have been made in this country, and recourse must be had
to the statements of observers in the other hemisphere.

In the Life of Sir Stamford Raffles is printed a letter from Singapore,
under date of November 30, 1822, with the following statement:

The only amusing discovery we have re