THE MA CKEREL AND ITS ALLIES. 



Large Mackerel often eat smaller ones. Capt. Collins has frequently 

 found young Mackerel three or four inches long in the stomachs of those 

 full grown. This is generally noticeable only in the fall, and the young 

 fish are probably those which have been hatched in the spring. 



In the fall of 1S74 the writer made a trip ui)on a gill-net schooner to 

 the grounds off Portland, jNIe., some distance to sea, for the purpose of 

 studying the food of the Mackerel, and found their stomachs full of a 

 species of Tliysanopoda and of a large copepod crustacean. The greater 

 part of the food of Mackerel consists, however, of minute crustaceans. 

 Owing to the infinite abundance of these in the sea, Mackerel probably 

 have very little difficulty in finding food at almost any portion of the 

 ocean visited by them, whether on the edge of the Gulf Stream or near 

 the shore. 



In an interview with Caj:)t. King Harding, of Swampscott, one of the 

 most experienced mackerel catchers on our coast, I obtained the follow- 

 ing amusing observations : " He desqribed one kind of crustacean Mack- 

 erel food which looked like spiders, which were red, and crawled over his 

 hand when he took them up. They look like spiders ; the Mackerel are 

 especially fond of them. At Boone Island, Me., in July, 1850, the water 

 all around the island was red for one hundred yards from the shore ; these 

 crawled up the rock-weed on the shore until it was red. He took the 

 sprays of rock-weed in his hands and pulled them slowly to him, and the 

 Mackerel, one and a half pound fish, would follow in quite to the rocks. 

 He killed three with his oar, and tried to catch some in a basket by troll- 

 ing them over it, but they were too quick for him. He asked his old 

 skipper, Capt. Gorhani Babson, what they were, and was told that they 

 were "Boone Island bedbugs." And, said he, "Young man, when you 

 see this kind of bait, no matter if you don't see any fish, never leave ; the 

 fish will be there in a few days." 



Then there is another kind, called "snappers." These are white, and 

 dart rapidly about in the water ; they are doubtless small crustaceans. 

 He says that sometimes they swim at the surface, where the Mackerel fol- 

 low them. A few days before he had been standing on the stern of his 

 vessel, and though he could see nothing under the water ho knew the 

 snappers were there about two feet below the surface, for he could see a 

 school of Mackerel swimming along, opening their mouths and taking in 

 their food, and then letting the water out through their gills. 



