174 



AMERICAN FISHES. 



of the flat fish, etc., spawns in the open sea, some times at a great dis- 

 tance from the land, at others closer inshore." Sars found them on the 

 outer banks of the coast of Norway ; and Mr. Matthias Dunn, of Mevagis- 

 sey, England, communicates to Land and Water his observations of 

 Mackerel found, with ripe spawn, six miles from the coast. 



The fish taken in the weirs and pounds on Vineyard Sound and about 

 Cape Cod in the early spring are filled with ripe spawn ; and that the 

 operation of spawning takes place on the American coast is shown by the 

 immense schools of small fish that are taken throughout the summer, of 

 various sizes, from a few inches up, and from Buzzard's Bay to Portland 

 and Penobscot Bay. No species of young fish is, at times, more abundant 

 throughout the summer season than the Mackerel. 



The egg of the Mackerel is exceedingly minute, not larger than that of 

 the alewife or gaspereau. It appears to be free from an adhesive envelope, 

 such as pertains to the egg of the herring, and in consequence of which it 

 agglutinates together, and adheres to gravel, the rocks or the seaweed at 

 the bottom. As with the egg of the cod, that of the Mackerel is provided 

 with an oil globule, which makes it float nearly at the level of the surface. 



I am indebted to Mr. Frederick W. True for an enumeration of the eggs 

 in two Mackerel taken at Wood's Holl, Mass., in May, 1873; one of 

 these contained 363,107, the other 393,887. 



The only previous record of the number of eggs yielded by Mackerel is 

 that made by Thomas Harmer, in 1764, and published in the " Philoso- 

 phical Transactions" of London, Vol. 57, p. 285. He found in one 

 large Mackerel, weighing one and a quarter pounds, 454,991 eggs; in a 

 second, of much the same weight, 430,846, and in a third, weighing about 

 one pound two ounces, 546,681. 



The growth of the Mackerel has been studied by Capt. Atwood, 

 and the same authority has, perhaps, more satisfactorily than any other, 

 interpreted the facts from which may be deduced the conclusions as to 

 their growth year by year. 



Referring to the small fish, six and a half or seven in length, which he 

 believed to be the young of the year, caught by him in October, 1S56, he 

 says: "Fish of this size are sometimes called ' Spikes,' out I do not 

 know their jiroiier name. The next year I think they are the 'Blinks,' 

 being one year old; the following year they are the 'Tinkers,' two 

 years old, and the year after they return to us as the second size, three 



