CONSERVATION OF THE MACKEREL SUPPLY. 823 



It must be obvious to the most ordinary reader that the cause 

 which led to this temporary failure was the too early interception 

 of the mackerel while on the way to their spawning ground. 

 Why this should be, I shall explain more interestingly ; for in 

 elucidating the subject I shall have to call attention to the pecul- 

 iar habits and instincts of the mackerel, which, upon the author- 

 ity of early official documents, we learn were suspected, if not 

 known, by the fishermen of the south of Ireland more than two 

 centuries ago. 



When alluding to the instinct of the mackerel I did so in a 

 manner that might possibly lead a reader to suppose that they 

 possess the same unreasoning prompting to action that do all ani- 

 mals, whether it be that that instinct warns them of danger, 

 safety, or the presence or propinquity of food or pleasurable ob- 

 ject. But there is one all-important factor of common instinct 

 which is partially absent in the mackerel — viz., danger ; for, al- 

 though when they are interrupted on the way to their spawning 

 ground they avoid the place where their shoals were broken — 

 oftentimes for many years — and execute the arc of a circle around 

 the danger spot on their succeeding journeys to the spawning 

 ground, it is a most curious fact that when close to their haunts 

 they swim blindly and without any apparent unreasoning prompt- 

 ing or instinct of danger onward, nor do they struggle to free 

 themselves from the meshes of the net as do all other fishes. 



There can be no doubt whatever about this absence, or rather 

 partial absence, of the instinct of danger in the mackerel. 



Another peculiar trait of this member of the Salmonidoe- family 

 is that mackerel do not feed upon their own young as do most 

 other fishes ; and often, in the autumn, when the " harvest mack- 

 erel " (a smaller species than the " season " mackerel, and usually, 

 but erroneously, supposed to be all males) frequents the waters 

 close to the shore, I have seen them rush wildly through a shoal 

 of sprats or brit, with which young mackerel often swim, devour- 

 ing them upon all sides, but studiously avoiding those of their 

 own family. Indeed, the petite mackerelettes do not seem to be at 

 all so alarmed as their companions, who spring out of the water 

 in their terror and swim scatteringly in every direction. This, 

 too, is undoubtedly instinct upon the part of both the juvenile 

 mackerel and his larger brother. But that fact does not impor- 

 tantly concern the purpose of this article. 



I have shown that they possess instinct of both a perfect and 

 imperfect order, and I have proved that, because of the intercep- 

 tion of the shoals while on their way to the spawning ground in 

 the spring, they abandon their usual course and travel perhaps 

 hundreds of miles in a semicircle to reach the haunts where the 

 roe is deposited. Of course, I have given only one example, and 



