GARFISH. 443 



name of Mackerel-Guide. Other names, and they arc not 

 a few, have been suggested and bestowed upon it, cither 

 in reference to internal peculiarities or external form. 



The Garfish, Dr. Johnston observes, is occasionally taken 

 off the coast of Berwick in the Mackerel season, and is not 

 unfrequently called a Sword-fish. Dr. Parnell says it is 

 found in the Firth of Forth, with the shoals of Mackerel 

 in July and August. Dr. Ncill, in his Tour, mentions 

 having found it also among the islands of Orkney, and it 

 visits the west coast of Norway, the Sound, and the Baltic. 

 Considerable quantities are brought to the London markets 

 in the spring from the shores of Kent and Sussex ; on which 

 coasts, however, the fish remain but a short time. Montagu 

 considered it a rare fish in Devonshire ; but Mr. Couch says, 

 " though considered a fish of passage, it is caught in every 

 month of the year on the Cornish coast, but most abun- 

 dantly in summer." It has been taken on the south, the 

 cast, and the northern shores of Ireland, from Cork to Lon- 

 donderry. Considerable quantities are eaten in London in 

 the spring ; some from curiosity, but the larger portion from 

 the moderate price at which they are sold : the flesh has 

 some of the flavour of Mackerel, but is more dry : the bones 

 are green. Great numbers are said to be caught off the 

 coast of Holland ; but they are only used as bait for other 

 fish. I have obtained the young of the year seven inches 

 long in December, with the mandibles of equal length ; and 

 Mr. Edward Clarke, now at Edinburgh, sent me word that 

 in June 1839 he procured three extremely minute specimens, 

 not quite an inch long, from a pool at Portobello, in which 

 the upper and under jaws were of equal length. 



The Garfish, Mr. Couch says, " swims near the surface 

 at all distances from land, and is seen not unfrequently to 

 spring out of its clement ; its vivacity being such that it 

 will for a long time play about a floating straw, and leap 



