REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 53 



— these facts indicate the presence of mackerel in deeper strata of 

 water before the spring migration: careful comparison of variable 

 external characters of mackerel from different localities has shown 

 that separate local races exist, while adjacent to the summer haunts 

 of each of these local races, on the British coast at least, is a limited 

 area of ocean of such a depth as to preserve in winter a temperature 

 suitable to the mackerel, but separated from other similar areas by 

 barriers of much deeper water which the mackerel apparently do not 

 readily cross. 



All these facts seem to indicate that in winter the mackerel live 

 in the deeper layers of the sea where they find suitable conditions, 

 probably at no great distance from their summer habitat. Their 

 migrations, then, are limited for the most part to movements between 

 the surface waters of the coasts and the deeper layers of water off 

 the same shores. 



III. Abundance. — The remarkable abundance of the common 

 mackerel in our waters has often been noted even since Colonial days. 

 Francis Higginson, in his '' Journal of His Voyage to New England, 

 1629," speaks of seeing off Cape Ann, June 26, " mam'' schools of 

 mackerel, infinite multitudes on every side of our ship." There are 

 several other similar notices in those early days. In later times 

 almost incredible stories of immense schools of mackerel have been 

 told by fishermen. Captain Harding, of Hwampscott, Mass., thus 

 describes a school which he saw in the t^outh Channel in 1848. " It 

 was a windrow of fish, about half a mile wide and at least twenty 

 miles long, for vessels not in sight of each other saw it at about the 

 same time." Schools have been seen so large that only one edge was 

 visible at a time. 



The abundance of the mackerel at various localities along the 

 coast is subject to great fluctuations from year to year. In some 

 places, in fact, where they are usually so numerous that important 

 fisheries are carried on, they have at times almost disappeared for a 

 series of years, subsequently returning again after a longer or shorter 

 absence. Although usually abundant on the United States coast, 



