130 ACANTHOPTERYGII. — SCOMBRIDiE. 



appearance and disappearance on the various parts 

 of the coast of Europe. Thus Anderson, writing 

 of the Mackerel, says that it " passes the winter 

 in the north; towards the spring it approaches 

 Iceland, Scotland, and Ireland, and enters the 

 Atlantic Ocean, whence one column passes along 

 the coast of Portugal and Spain, and enters the 

 Mediterranean, while the other turns into the 

 British Channel, and appears there in May, on 

 the coasts of France and England ; and from 

 thence passes in June along those of Holland and 

 Friesland. This second column having reached 

 in July the coasts of Jutland, detaches a division, 

 which, making the tour of that peninsula, enters 

 the Baltic Sea ; and the remainder, passing along 

 the coast of Norway, return to the north." 



Facts, however, do not agree with these state- 

 ments ; the appearance of this fish in shoals 

 varies in the times of its occurrence, certainly, at 

 different points on the coast ; but does not at all 

 follow the line of succession which a migration 

 would involve. Thus the Mackerel appears on 

 the Cornish shores often in March ; on the coasts 

 of Hampshire and Sussex, at the same time, and 

 on the latter frequently in February ; while in 

 the bays of Devonshire, though an intermediate 

 locality, they are not plentiful till June. On the 

 French side of the channel, they appear later 

 about Havre and Dieppe than at Dunquerque ; 

 which is the reverse of the order followed on our 

 own south-eastern coasts, for little is done in the 

 Mackerel fishery in Suffolk and Norfolk before 

 the latter half of May, two or three months after 

 it has begun on the coast of Sussex and Kent. 

 In Scotland their occurrence is considerably later 



