190 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



verse bands 28 that run down in an irregular wavy course nearly to the midlevel of 

 the body, below which there is a narrow dark streak running along each side from 

 pectoral to tail fin. The pectorals are black or dusky at the base, while the dorsals 

 and caudal are gray or dusky. The jaws and gill covers are silvery. The lower 

 sides are white with silvery, coppery, or brassy reflections and iridescence, and 

 the belly silvery white, but the iridescent colors fade so rapidly after death that a 

 dead fish gives little idea of the brilliance of a living one. 



Size. — Mackerel have been recorded up to 20 inches long and weighing as much 

 as 3H pounds. One of that length, measured by Doctor Kendall on Georges 

 Bank, was 11^ inches in circumference, but an 18 or 19 inch fish is above the aver- 

 age, the adults running from 13 to 14 inches and upward. One a foot long weighs 

 12 to 16 ounces. 



General range. — Both sides of the North Atlantic — Norway to Spain off the 

 European coast, 29 and from southern Labrador to Cape Hatteras off the American 

 coast. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — At one time or another the mackerel is prac- 

 tically universal in the Gulf of Maine, for not only does it appear in great abund- 

 ance on the offshore grounds — that is, Nantucket Shoals, Georges and Browns 

 Banks — and all over the central deeps, but also throughout the coastal belt; 

 and while the adult fish seldom venture within the outer islands or headlands, good 

 catches are sometimes made well up Penobscot Bay, and young ones 6 to 10 inches 

 long often swarm right up to the docks in summers of plenty, such as 1922, when 

 a great abundance of them was taken. 



It is impossible to outline any particular subdivisions of the inner Gulf as pro- 

 lific or barren of mackerel, for the fish congregate in different regions from year 

 to year. The Bay of Fundy, for example, once a famous mackerel ground, was so 

 nearly deserted for some years after 1876 that fishing was abandoned there. Of 

 late years, however, large schools are often seen on the Nova Scotian side, and 

 some right up to the head, but comparatively few are reported on the New Bruns- 

 wick shore. In years when the mackerel come well inshore, Massachusetts Bay 

 is usually a center of abundance both early and late in the season, with the fish 

 schooling irregularly there during the summer as well. Both seiners and hook 

 and line fishermen have found prolific grounds in the neighborhood of Boon Island, 

 off Cape Elizabeth, from Monhegan to Matinicus Island, and near Mount Desert 

 Rock. During some summers the mackerel are reported mostly within 30 to 40 

 miles of land in the Gulf of Maine; in other years most of them stay offshore. 

 In 1882, for example, a year of great abundance, vast schools were found over the 

 offshore deeps of the Gulf between Georges Bank, Browns Bank, and Cashes Ledge, 

 and thence northward to within 40 miles or so of the Maine coast, most of the early 

 season catch being made in this deep water and in the weirs along the west coast 

 of Nova Scotia. Later in the season, however, the fish disappeared. 



s Hunt (Copeia, No. 117, pp. 53-59, April, 1923) describes the variations in these stripes among young mackerel caught off 

 Long Island, New York, in November, 1922. 



" There is a fairly constant racial difference between American and British mackerel (Oarstang, Journal, Marine Biological 

 Association of the United Kingdom, Vol. V, New Series, No. 3, 1898, pp. 235-295), the former showing more transverse bars, 

 being more often spotted between them, and more often having 6 instead of 5 dorsal finlets. 



