82 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that one which came under my own observation during the years 

 from 1880 to 1892 ; but I shall now go back more than two hun- 

 dred years and add to my personal knowledge the experience of 

 the fishermen of that time,, as recorded in the Annals of Kinsale, 

 which old manuscripts I had the very great pleasure and privi- 

 lege of being allowed to make a thorough examination of in 1882 

 and 1883. 



Even in recent years, here, as well as in Ireland, the fish sa- 

 vants sought to place the cause of the scarcity of mackerel at 

 every door but the correct one. One man would say, " They are 

 being overfished " ; another, " They are most uncertain in their 

 comings and goings, and have no fixed or permanent haunts or 

 spawning grounds " ; and yet a third would advance the theory 

 (for, mind you, all these men are simply theorists in the science 

 of ichthyology) that "mackerel only frequent certain localities 

 on the coast at irregular periods." 



All three theories are wrong ; and I shall prove that not only 

 have they fixed spawning grounds and haunts, but that they have 

 been known to frequent one "ground" for over two hundred 

 years without the intermission of a season, and that it is only such 

 accident as continued interception of their progress toward that 

 ground too early in the season that prevents their being captured 

 in large quantities in the same places and at the same time every 

 year. 



Early in the seventeenth century " enormous catches of pil- 

 chards, mackerel, and herring" were obtained off the southern 

 Irish coast. At that time the mackerel season occurred precisely 

 at the same time in each year as it does now, and the great spawn- 

 ing grounds were located then in exactly the same place as they 

 are to-day. This of itself goes far to prove that the habits of 

 mackerel, in this wise at all events, are practically unchangeable ; 

 but we must advance more particularly into the matter to arrive 

 at a positive rock foundation for my statements. In the seven- 

 teenth century the native fishermen fished in open boats, "with 

 rude and inadequate appliances." But then, too, a fleet of French 

 fishing smacks came annually from Dieppe, Havre, Boulogne, and 

 the many small villages and towns lying between these cities, to 

 reap the mackerel harvest in the ocean outside Kinsale. These 

 Frenchmen had fishing appliances much superior to those of the 

 Irish. In fact, I demonstrated clearly in 1883 that the most im- 

 proved modern inventions for the capture of mackerel are not 

 importantly superior to the gear used by the French fishermen in 

 Irish waters nearly three hundred years ago. And it is in this 

 connection that the connecting link between the mackerel fisher- 

 ies or mackerel habits and instincts of the seventeenth and nine- 

 teenth centuries can be plainly demonstrated. 



