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Huge Ziffius, whom Mariners eschew / No lesse, then rockes, as travellers informe […]
1700, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 3, page 38:
S. Malpighi having dissected the Head of a Xiphias or Sword Fish, which hath a very big Eye, observ'd that the middle of the Optick Nerve is nothing else, but a large Membrane, folded according to its length in many Doubles almost like a Fan, and invested by the Dura Mater.
1857, Bostock & Riley, “part 32.vi”, in Natural History, translation of original by Pliny:
Trebius Niger informs us that […] the xiphias, or, in other words, the sword-fish, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom […]
23 May 1863, Prof. Huxley, “Structure and development of the vertebrate skeleton”, in The Lancet:
In the xiphias, you observe, the enormous elongation of the head is produced by the elongation of the jaws proper – that is to say, of the pre-maxilla and nasal bones.
