ICHTHYOLOGY. 



181 



Acanthop- minute description. The back is blue, crossed by many 

 terysii. durii transverse bands, nearly straight in the males, but 

 Scombe- findy waved in the females. The sides and abdomen are 

 ""'^"" of a silvery hue, glossed with brilliant tints of gold. The 

 name is said to refer to the spotted appearance of the up- 

 per parts, and to be derived from the Latin macularius. 

 We shall here avail ourselves of Mr Yarrell's history of 

 this important species. 



" The mackerel was supposed by Anderson, Duhamel, 

 and others, to be a fish of passage, performing, like some 

 birds, certain periodical migrations, and making long voy- 

 ages from north to south at one season of the year, and the 

 reverse at another. It does not appear to have been suffi- 

 ciently considered, that, inhabiting a medium which varied 

 but little either in its temperature or productions, locally, 

 fishes are removed beyond the influence of the two prin- 

 cipal causes which make a temporary change of situation 

 necessary. Independently of the difficulty of tracing the 

 course pursued through so vast an expanse of water, the 

 order of the appearance of the fish at different places on 

 the shores of the temperate and southern parts of Europe 

 is the reverse of that which, according to their theory, 

 ought to have happened. It is known that this fish is noiv 

 taken, even on some parts of our own coast, in every month 

 of the year. It is jirobable that the mackerel inhabits al- 

 most the whole of the European seas ; and the law of na- 

 ture which obliges them and many others to visit the 

 shallower water of the shores at a particular season, appears 

 to be one of those wise and bountiful provisions of the 

 Creator, by which not only is the species perpetuated with 

 the greatest certainty, but a large portion of the parent 

 animals are thus brought within the reach of man, who, 

 but for the action of this law, would be deprived of many 

 of those species most valuable to him as food. For the 

 mackerel dispersed over the immense surface of the deej), 

 no effective fishery could be carried on ; but, approaching 

 the shore as they do from all directions, and roving along 

 the coast collected in immense shoals, millions are caught, 

 which yet form but a very small portion compared with the 

 myriads that escape. 



" This subject receives farther illustration from a fresh- 

 water fish, as stated in the Magazine of Natural History, 

 vol. vii. p. 637 : ' When the char spawn, they are seen 

 in the shallow parts of the rocky lakes (in which only they 

 are found), and some of the streams that run into them : 

 they are then taken in abundance, but so soon as the 

 spawning is over, they retire into the deepest parts of the 

 lake, and are but rarely caught.' 



" It may be observed farther, that as there is scarcely a 

 month throughout the year in which the fishes of some one 

 or more species are not brought within the reach of man 

 by the operation of the imperative law of nature referred 

 to, a constant succession of wholesome food is thus spread 

 before him, which, in the first instance, costs him little 

 beyond the exercise of his ingenuity and labour to ob- 

 tain. 



" On the coast of Ireland, the mackerel is taken from 

 the county of Kerry in the west, along the southern shore, 

 eastward to Cork and Waterford ; from thence northward 

 to Antrim, and north-west to Londonderry and Donegal. 

 Dr M'Culloch says it visits some of the lochs of the West- 

 ern Islands, but is not considered very abundant. On the 

 Cornish coast this fish in some seasons occurs as early as 

 the month of March, and appears to be pursuing a course 

 from west to east. They are plentiful on the Devonshire 

 coast, and swarm in West Bay about June. On the 

 Hampshire and Sussex coast, particularly the latter, they 

 arrive as early as March ; and sometimes, as « ill be shown, 

 even in February : and the earlier m the year the fisher- 

 men go to look for them, the farther from the shore do 

 they seek for and find them. Duhamel says the mackerel 



are caught earlier at Dunkirk than at Dieppe or Havre lAcanihop. 

 upon our own eastern coast, however, the fishing is later, tervgii. 

 The fishermen of Lowestoffc and Yarmouth gain their °'^°'"''^- 

 great harvest from the mackerel in May and June. Mr \^..^-^ 

 Neill says they occur in the Forth at the end of summer ; ~ ^^ 

 and Mr Low, in his Fauna Orcadensis, states that they do 

 not make their appearance there till the last week in July 

 or the first week in August. 



" The mackerel spawns in June ; and, according to 

 Bloch, five hundred and forty thousand ova have been 

 counted in one female. I have observed, by the mackerel 

 sent to the London market from the shallow shores of Worth- 

 ing and its vicinity, that these fish mature and deposit their 

 roe earlier on that flat sandy shore than those cauglit in 

 the deep water off Brigliton. The young mackerel, which 

 are called shiners, are from four to six inches long by the 

 end of August. They are half grown by November ; when 

 they retire, says Mr Couch, ' to deep water, and are seen 

 no more that winter: but the adult fishes never wholly 

 quit the Cornish coast ; and it is common to see some ta- 

 ken with lines in every month of the year.' Their princi- 

 pal food is probably the fry of other fish ; and at Hastings 

 the mackerel follow towards the shore a small species of 

 Clupea, which is there called, in consequence, the mackerel 

 mint. I have been unable hitherto to obtain any specimens 

 of this small fish ; but, from various descriptions, I think 

 it is probably the young of the sprat. It is described as 

 being about one inch long in July. 



" The mackerel as feeders are voracious, and their growth 

 is rapid. The ordinary length varies from fourteen to six- 

 teen inches, and their weight is about two pounds each ; 

 but they are said to attain the length of twenty inches, 

 with a proportionate increase in weight. The largest fish 

 are not, however, considered the best for the table. 



" As an article of food they are in great request ; and 

 those taken in the months of May and June are generally 

 considered to be superior in flavour to those taken either 

 earlier in spring, or in autumn. To be eaten in perfection, 

 this fish should be very fresh. As it soon becomes unfit for 

 food, some facilities in the way of sale have been afforded 

 to the dealers in a commodity so perishable. Mackerel 

 were first allowed to be cried through the streets of Lon- 

 don on a Sunday in 1698, and the practice prevails to the 

 present time. 



" At our various fishing towns on the coast, the macke- 

 rel season is one of great bustle and activity. The fre- 

 quent departures and arrivals of boats at this time form a 

 lively contrast to the more ordinary routine of other pe- 

 riods ; the high price obtained for the early cargoes, and 

 the large return gained generally from the enormous num- 

 bers of this fish sometimes captured in a single night, be- 

 ing the inducement to great exertions. A few particulars 

 from various sources may not be uninteresting. 



" In May 1807, the first Brighton boat-load of mackerel 

 sold at Billingsgate for forty guineas per hundred — seven 

 shillings each, reckoning six score to a hundred ; the high- 

 est price ever known at that market. The next boat-load 

 produced but thirteen guineas per hundred. Mackerel 

 were so plentiful at Dover in 1808 that they were sold 

 sixty for a shilling. At Brighton, in June of the same 

 year, the shoal of mackerel « as so great, that one of the 

 boats had the meshes of her nets so completely occupied 

 by them, that it was impossible to drag them in ; the fish 

 and nets, therefore, in the end, sunk together, the fisher- 

 men thereby sustaining a loss of nearly sixty pounds, ex- 

 clusive of what the cargo, could it have been got into the 

 boat, would have produced. The success of the fishery in 

 1821 was beyond all precedent. The value of the catch 

 of sixteen boats from Lowestoffe, on the 30th of June, 

 amounted to L.52o2 ; and it is supposed that there was, no 

 less an amount than L. 14, 000 altogether realised by the 



