SAURY PIKE. 447 



by pails-full : numbers were caught, and heaps flung ashore. 

 According to Mr. Ncill, the Saury is not at all an uncom- 

 mon fish in the Firth of Forth, numbers running up with 

 the flood-tide in the autumn ; but they do not, like other 

 fishes, retire from the shallows at the ebbing of the tide, but 

 are then found by hundreds, having their long noses stuck in 

 the sludge, and are picked up by people from Kincardine, 

 Alloa, and other places. Mr. Pennant mentions that great 

 numbers of Sauries were thrown ashore at Leith, by a storm, 

 in November 1 768. The Saury has been taken off Berwick 

 and Yarmouth on the east, and off Portland Island on the 

 south; being, on some occasions, even plentiful in Cornwall. 

 Mr. Couch in his MS. says 



" The Skipper is more strictly than the Gar-pike a mi- 

 gratory fish, never being seen in the Channel until the month 

 of June, and it commonly departs before the end of autumn. 

 It does not swim deep in the Avater ; and in its harmless 

 manners resembles the Flying Fish, as well as in the perse- 

 cution it experiences from the ravenous inhabitants of the 

 ocean, and the method it adopts to escape from their pursuit. 

 It is gregarious, and is sometimes seen to rise to the surface 

 in large shoals, and flit over a considerable space. But the 

 most interesting spectacle, and that which best displays their 

 great agility, is when they are followed by a company of 

 Porpoises, or their still more active and persevering enemjes 

 the Tunny and Bonito. Multitudes then mount to the 

 surface, and crowd on each other as they press forward. 

 When still more closely pursued, they singly spring to the 

 height of several feet, leap over each other in singular confu- 

 sion, and again sink beneath. Still further urged, they 

 mount again, and rush along the surface by repeated starts 

 for more than a hundred feet, without once dipping beneath, 

 or scarcely seeming to touch the water. At last, the pursuer 

 springs after them, usually across their course ; and again 



