822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I shall elucidate the subject of the causes of the apparent 

 diminution in the mackerel supply off this coast by an example 

 which will de facto point out how this fish can be readmitted as 

 an economic sea product for our food supply ; and in so doing 

 I shall draw almost entirely from my research in the matter as 

 contained in the paper to which I have referred. 



About thirty years ago the mackerel fishery off the southern 

 Irish coast was first (in this century) prosecuted as a great indus- 

 try. Fishing vessels came there from Scotland, England, the 

 Isle of Man, and from France, to reap the silvery harvest of the 

 ocean ; and the few rude native craft which then existed were 

 rapidly multiplied into hundreds of beautiful yacht-like fishing 

 vessels. For twenty years the mackerel fishing — which begins in 

 March and continues until the end of June — prospered almost 

 phenomenally, and many of the boat-owners and fishermen, both 

 native and foreign, amassed comparative wealth, as did also the 

 ship-builders and net and rope makers. The town of Kinsale, 

 county of Cork, which is the headcpiarters of the industry, en- 

 joyed a prosperity during those years strangely at variance with 

 the decaying condition of other Irish towns; but in 1880 this 

 great fishery was temporarily destroyed, through sheer ignorance 

 of the habits and instincts of the mackerel, by the avarice of the 

 boat-owners and fishermen of the Isle of Man. 



It occurred in this way : All the fishermen of this great fleet 

 — over one thousand fishing vessels, each carrying eight to ten 

 men and more than two miles of netting — were aware that the 

 mackerel came from the Atlantic, in the southwest and west, 

 toward their spawning ground off the southern Irish coast at 

 this season. But the Manx fishermen and owners were not satis- 

 fied with reaping a good harvest from March to June. The fish 

 fetches a much larger price early in the season, and they decided 

 that they would " try " for them farther west than the usual fish- 

 ing ground, before the season opened off Kinsale and Baltimore. 

 The result was disastrous. For two years the " early boats " suc- 

 ceeded well; but in the third year the entire mackerel fishing 

 along the coast was a failure, and it was not until May and early 

 in June that good catches were made off the " grounds " outside 

 Kinsale. Then the price was low, as the fish was too full of roe, 

 or " spent " after spawning, to be shipped to foreign markets in 

 good condition, and one after another the boat-owners and fisher- 

 men and merchants fell before the unprosperous wave. The fact 

 of the mackerel not turning up until late in the season caused 

 sore distress among the eight or ten thousand persons engaged in 

 the industry ; but it had one good effect — it stopped the too early 

 fishing ; and now, after eight years of failure, prosperity is again 

 beginning to dawn upon the southern Irish fisheries. 



