342 SUPPLEMENT ON 



who have arrived in the barks, lift up so as to raise the fish 

 along with it, as far as the surface. They then give battle to 

 the tunnies on all sides, striking them with hooked poles 

 and all sorts of similar weapons : an imposing spectacle 

 which often attracts a great number of curious observers. It 

 is one of the greatest amusements of the rich Sicilians, and 

 at the same time one of the first branches of commerce in 

 their island. 



The tunnies spawn in the Mediterranean, and the young 

 come forth there in abundance, and grow with an astonishing 

 degree of rapidity. 



A Sicilian nobleman, Don Carlo d'Amico, has made some 

 curious observations on this subject, and which appear toler- 

 ably precise. The tunnies which are taken at the com- 

 mencement of the fishery on their arrival in April and the 

 first days of May, have no eggs developed. In a few days 

 their ovaries enlarge ; from fifteen ounces that they weighed 

 at first, they come to weigh twelve pounds and a half. After 

 the 15th of June, animated by the desire of reproduction, 

 they are seen in continual motion, leaping in the gulfs and 

 bays, and ejecting their eggs into the seaweed, where they are 

 fecundated by the males. In the month of July the new-born 

 tunnies do not yet weigh more than an ounce and a half, 

 and are named nunzintuli ; in the month of August they 

 weigh four ounces ; in the month of October they weigh 

 thirty. 



It is almost certain that in almost all the points of this sea, 

 the tunnies show themselves pretty nearly about the same 

 time, and without its being possible to say that they pass at 

 first through certain tracts, and then arrive afterwards at 

 others. But on the other hand it is not ascertained that on 

 each coast the tunnies do not follow a certain direction at 

 their arrival, and another at their departure, and that the 

 tonnaros disposed for both those fisheries should not be re- 



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