STRIPE-BACKED PELAMIS. 



107 



salted, or preserved in oil. It .scorns to spawn off the 

 Kiiglish eoast, loo, for Day states that I'ry (! inches in 

 length have been taken there. It is nsnally confounded 

 with the Mackerel, liowc\er, and reg.irch'd onl\- as a 

 large specimen of thiit species. In Scandinavia only 

 comparatively large specimens have been tnken, and 

 these but seldom. Only four such finds are known. 

 The iirst, described by Mal.m, was caught on a Mac- 

 kerel-line off SmOgen (Bohusliln) on the 18th of July, 

 1868: two others were taken off' Stromstad, in De- 

 cember, 1877, ;md January, 1878, during the Herring- 

 tishery which had just begun, and are now preserved 

 in the Royal Museum. The fourtli was taken in a net 

 near Christiania on the 15th of June, 1878. The spe- 

 cies can thus be regarded oidy as an occasional visitor 

 to the Scandinavian Fauna; but it is spread over the 

 greater part of the Atlantic from the Cape of Good 

 Hope to the North Sea and westAvard to the coast of 

 Massachusetts. While Day states that it has been ob- 

 served that this species has latterly become rarer on 



the English coast, the case is said to be the opposite 

 on the coast of America. It has sometimes been caught 

 in enormous quantities, between Block Island and New 

 York for exaniph;: the catch off l)iock Island alone; in 

 1877 is said to have weighed at least 2 million lbs. 

 At one haul of a piu'se-seine 1,500 specimens were 

 taken". In spite of this proof of its gregarious habits 

 there, it seems tliat the Pelamis, as a rule at least, 

 does not spawn on the coast of the Northern States, 

 as only solitary young specimens have been found. As 

 an article of food, the Pelamis ranks among the l)est 

 of fishes in North America to(j, but the large quantity 

 of Wood it possesses and the high temperature of its 

 body render it necessary to slaughter it soon aftei- its 

 capture, in order to prevent decomposition. In the 

 Southern States instances are given of illnesses (diar- 

 rhaui, vomiting and skin-eruptions) due to the eating 

 of the flesh of the Pelamis or of other closely related 

 species. 



Gknus AUXIS. 



Body fusiform^ fairly hiyh in adult specimens. The scales of the body form a distinct corslet in the jimdj- 

 doDihial reyioii. hid heh'uid this the body is naked {without scales). Dorsal fins far apart, tlie first triangular, the 

 second of the same form as the anal, but either (dtoyether or for the greater part at least situated in front of the 

 latter. Finlcts beldnd the dorsal and anal fins from 7 to !). Pectoral fins set midway between the back and the 

 belly. Eyes of average size: the adipose lid, as a rule, rudimentary. The preorbital bone covers at least a great 

 part even of the back of the upper jaw-bone, when the mouth is closed. Jaw teeth small, set in a single row. 

 Palatine bones and vomer without teeth. On each side of the end of the tail a middle carina and two shorter, 

 lateral carinee: behind the latter two weaher ones., which extend to the hind margin of the caudal fin. Pyloric 

 appendages united, into a glandulous mass, or {in youth?) free but repeatedly branched. 



(_)f this geiuis, a remarkable inteianediate form 

 with some Thynuoid and some Scombroid (s. str.) cha- 

 racters highly developed, we probably know only one 



species, which was tirst described b)^ Commerson as 

 belonging to the neighbourhood of New Guinea. 



" See Bhown-GdODK, Fi.^h. Imln.itr., pt. 1, p. 318. 



