534 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Mr. A. Howard Clarke, iu charge of the Fish Commission station at 

 Gloucester, has communicated to Professor Baird some interesting facts 

 regarding- its abundance. JFrom these statements it would also appear 

 that the species has been observed occasionally in past years. He 

 writes under date of August 10: "I have received this morning from 

 the schooner 'Fitz J. Babson', just arrived from Block Island, a fish 

 answering to your description of the Auxis, having a corselet of scales 

 around the pectoral fin, as in the tunny. The captain of the vessel, 

 Joshua Biggs, reports that about a week ago he had a hundred barrels 

 iu the seine at one time, and saw over twenty schools of them. He saw 

 them as far east as Sow-and-Pig Light Ship. They are very easy to catch, 

 flip like menhaden, do not rush, and are not frightened at the seine. 

 They go in immense numbers; he thinks as many as one thousand bar- 

 rels to a school. Tbe day after the appearance of these fish the mack- 

 erel disappeared, but he does not know whether the mackerel were 

 driven away by them or not. They feed on mackerel food. Mr. Daniel 

 Hiltz, of the same vessel, says that he caught one of just the same kind, 

 in Februarj", 1879, on a haddock-trawl on the eastern i)art of tl:e Middle 

 Bank, in forty fathoms of water. He took it to Boston, where it was 

 called a young bonito. 



" Mr. John Henderson, of the schooner ' Sarah C. Wharf, says that two 

 vessels caught such fish recently eastward of here. The schooner 

 'American Eagle', of Provincetown, took a number of barrels of them 

 into Newport, and sold them for a dollar a barrel. Another Cape Cod 

 vessel'' — he does not know her name — "took about fifty barrels of them 

 and threw them away. All the mackerel-seiners from Block Island 

 report seeing quantities of this new fish within the past forinight. 

 The captain of the schooner ' Sarah C. Wharf says he first saw them a 

 fortnight ago, some fifteen miles ofi' Block Island. The captain and 

 several of the crew of the 'Ella M. Johnson', of I^ewburyport, just 

 arrived from Block Island, state they saw abundance of the Auxis, but 

 did not know what it was until rei>orts came from you at Newport. 

 They opened one and found in its stomach the ordinary red-mackerel 

 food. This crew differ with the crew of the schooner 'Fitz J. Babson', 

 with regard to the ease of capturing them ; think them rather difficult 

 to take; say they fii[> like porgie^, and do not rush like mackerel. They 

 saw ten large schools of them on Saturday- last, when some fifteen miles 

 south of Block Island." 



I hope that any reader of the American Xaturalist who has seen this 

 fish will mention it. Some may, perhaps, have an opportunity of study- 

 ing its habits. The length of those I have seen ranges from 12 to 16 

 inches, and their weight from three-quarters of a i)Ound to a pound and 

 a half or more. Those sent to New York market were j art of the lot 

 taken by the schiiooer "American Eagle" and brought into Newport, 

 whence they were shipped by Mr. Thompson, a fish-dealer of that place. 

 It would require from eighty to one hundred of them to fill a barrel; so 



