THE SPANISH MACKEREL AND THE CEROES. 195 



posing them to be a species of horse-mackerel i^Orcyniis), which they 

 understood had no value as a food-fish. Since no purchasers could be 

 found for them, they were finally thrown away. Farther south few have 

 been taken, owing to the lack of suitable apparatus, as well as to the fact 

 that the fishermen seldom fish beyond the inlets. The smack fishermen of 

 Charleston catch a few on troll-lines during the pleasant weather of the 

 spring and early summer, but they fish only occasionally in this way. 



"Though the fishing is at present limited to certain localities, there is 

 no reason to believe that the fish are absent from other places ; on the 

 contrary, it seems probable that, should proper apparatus be employed, 

 the species could be taken at almost any point along the outer shore 

 where the menhaden are abundant." 



C. R. Moore, of Johnsontown, Va., wrote in 1874: "Spanish Mack- 

 erel come in September and October and stay until frost. They are most 

 numerous about the mouth of the York River, where a large number are 

 caught in seines and salted. They bring about ^40 a barrel." 



There is no reason to believe that the present fishery will affect the 

 future abundance of the species; for the catch is necessarily insignificant 

 when the immense number of individuals in our waters is taken into 

 account. There is no doubt that there have been important fluctuations 

 in abundance in the past, and natural causes are certain, cause a like 

 variation in the future. 



It is particularly important therefore, that the experiments which the 

 U. S. Fish Commission has already made upon the artificial propagation 

 of this species shall be as soon as possible brought to some practical 

 outcome. 



The Spanish Mackerel of New England was a fish with spotted sides. 

 The people of New England found a spotted mackerel and called it by 

 the old familiar name ; the people of the Middle States did likewise with 

 a different kind of spotted mackerel. In like manner the names herring, 

 alewife, shad, salmon, trout, perch, chub, and bass are applied to several 

 different kinds of fish in different parts of the United States. There is 

 only one clew to the manner in which the Spanish Mackerel of England 

 was named. Rondeletius, who wrote in 1554, a book on marine fishes, 

 " Libri de Piscibus Marinis," speaks of this fish as occasionally occurring 

 on the coast of France, but particularly abundant in Spain. 



How did our Spanish Mackerel get its name ? English colonists, the 

 world over, have always given to the native animals of the new continent, 

 the names of those with which they were familiar in their ancestral home. 



