Percomorphi 261 



American mackerel-schooners yachts of great speed and 

 unsurpassed for seaworthiness. The modern instruments of 

 capture are marvels of inventive skill, and require the highest 

 degree of energy and intelligence on the part of the fisher- 

 men. The crews of the mackerel-schooners are still for the 

 most part Americans of the old colonial stock, although the 

 cod and halibut fisheries are to a great extent given up to 

 foreigners. 



"When the mackerel is caught, trout, bass, and sheeps- 

 head cannot vanquish him in a gastronomic tournament. In 

 Holland, to be sure, the mackerel is not prized, and is accused 

 of tasting like rancid fish-oil, and in England, even, they are 

 usually lean and dry, like the wretched skeletons which are 

 brought to market in April and May by the southern fleet, 

 which goes forth in the early spring from Massachusetts to 

 intercept the schools as they approach the coasts of Carolina 

 and Virginia. They are not worthy of the name of mackerel. 

 Scomber Scombrus is not properly in season until the spawning 

 time is over, when the schools begin to feed at the surface in 

 the Gulf of Maine and the 'North Bay.' 



"Just from the water, fat enough to broil in its own drip- 

 pings, or slightly corned in strong brine, caught at night and 

 eaten in the morning, a mackerel or a bluefish is unsurpass- 

 able. A well-cured autumn mackerel is perhaps the finest of 

 all salted fish, but in these days of wholesale capture by the 

 purse-seine, hasty dressing and careless handling, it is very dif- 

 ficult to obtain a sweet and sound salt mackerel. Salt mack- 

 erel may be boiled as well as broiled, and a fresh mackerel 

 may be cooked in the same manner. Americans will usually 

 prefer to do without the sauce of fennel and gooseberry which 

 transatlantic cooks recommend. Fresh and salt, fat and lean, 

 new or stale, mackerel are consumed by Americans in immense 

 quantities, as the statistics show, and whatever their state, 

 always find ready sale." 



Smaller, less important, less useful, but far more widely 

 distributed is the chub-mackerel, or thimble-eyed mackerel, 

 Scomber japonicus (Houttuyn, 1782), usually known by the 

 later name of Scomber colias (Gmelin, 1788). In this species 

 the air-bladder (absent in the common mackerel) is moder- 



