262 Fish Stories 



It is stated that in Sicilian waters the fish sometimes reach a 

 thousand pounds in weight. Think of that, Mr. ' Light- 

 tackleman,' but last year the largest taken weighed but six 

 hundred and fifty pounds and was presented as an offering 

 to the shrine of St. Sebastian, the patron saint of Sicilian 

 fishermen. The fish usually enter the Straits of Gibraltar in 

 April, and are soon after seen ofif the Balearic Islands, and 

 towards the first of May reach Sicily. It is then called the 

 ' tunny of arrival,' and here the main school seems to split 

 into three. One going south to the Tunisian coast, and 

 thence on to the Adriatic, and a few as far as the Bospho- 

 rus. Another branch school, apparently the largest, follows 

 the northerly coast of Sicily, on through the Straits of Mes- 

 sina as far as Syracuse, while the third branch strikes north 

 to Sardinia. As at Catalina, their arrival is irregular, in 

 some years early, some late, and some years not at all. Often 

 they are preceded and followed for a fortnight by young fish 

 of from twenty to fifty pounds. After July they prac- 

 tically disappear, except for occasional specimens that seem 

 to remain the year around. From July to October they are 

 taken in much smaller numbers off the coast of Spain, and 

 they are then called the ' tunny of return ' ; but where they 

 originally come from, or finally go to, is answered in the 

 rather large terms South Atlantic and North Atlantic. Nor 

 can I get positive information as to why the fish follows such 

 fixed lines, whether to spawn or no, or where the fry are 

 reared (none are ever taken apparently), or whether it is 

 that they only follow the vast shoals of sardelles, ' palamita ' 

 and ' sgamirro,' on which they feed (instead of the flying 

 fish as at Catalina). 



" It is impossible to convince the Sicilians that the tunny 

 can be taken with rod and reel, and indeed it does not appear 

 to ever have been done there, though heavy handlines are 

 sometimes used. The native, aside from his constitutional 

 dislike for labor, is too much interested in it as a bread and 

 butter proposition to think of the sport, and even among the 



