364 AMERICAN FISHES. 



Horse-mackerel, a name used on our coasts with the greatest carelessness, 

 being applied to Elops saurus, Anoplopoma fimbria, and Merlucius pro- 

 ductus, as well as to various scombroids and carangoid fishes. It reaches 

 a length of about thirty inches and a weight of ten pounds, its average 

 weight being five or six. It is found from the Island of Santa Cruz to 

 Alaska, being very irregular in its appearance, some years very abundant 

 and at other times wanting altogether. It is exceedingly voracious, feed- 

 ing on all sorts of small fishes and squids. The stomach is always filled 

 almost to bursting. 



It spawns in the spring, and its arrival near the coast always precedes 

 the deposition of the spawn. It probably then retires to deeper water. 



Its value as a food-fish is very little. It is scarcely salable in the mar- 

 ket of San Francisco. Its flesh is very soft, and it is always ragged-looking 

 when shipped. Nothing was learned as to the quality of its flesh, but it 

 probably differs little from the Atlantic form Merlucius bilinearis. 



