182 



ICHTHYOLOGY. 



Aranthop- owners and men concerned in the fishery of the Suffolk 

 terygii. coast.' In March 1833, on a Sunday, four Hastings' boats 

 brought on shore ten thousand eiglit hundred mackerel ; 

 and the next day two boats brought seven thousand fish. 

 Early in the month of February 1834, one boat's crew from 

 Hastings cleared L.lOO by the fish caught in one night; 

 and a large quantity of very fine mackerel appeared in the 

 London market in the second week of the same month. 

 They were cried through the streets of London three for a 

 shilling on the 14th and 2-2d of March 1834, and had then 

 been plentiful for a month. The boats engaged in fishing 

 are usually attended by other fast-sailing vessels, which are 

 sent away with the fish taken. From some situations 

 these vessels sail away direct for the London market ; at 

 others they make for the nearest point from which they 

 can obtain land-carriage for their fish. From Hastings 

 and other fishing towns on the Sussex coast the fish are 

 brought to London by vans, which travel up during the 

 night. 



" The most common mode of fishing for mackerel, and 

 the way in which the greatest numbers are taken, is by 

 drift-nets. The drift-net is twenty feet deep, by one hun- 

 dred and twenty feet long ; well corked at the top, but 

 without lead at the bottom. They are made of small fine 

 twine, which is tanned of a reddish-brown colour, to pre- 

 serve it from the action of the sea-water ; and it is thereby 

 rendered much more durable. The size of the mesh is 

 about two and a half inches, or rather larger. Twelve, 

 fifteen, and sometimes eighteen of these nets are attached 

 lengthways, by tying along a thick rope, called the drift- 

 rope, and at the ends of each net, to each other. When 

 arranged for depositing in the sea, a large buoy attached 

 to the end of the drift rope is thrown overboard, the vessel 

 is put before the wind, and, as she sails along, the rope, 

 with the nets thus attached, is passed over the stern into 

 the water till the whole of the nets are run out. The net 

 thus deposited hangs suspended in the water ]ierpendicu- 

 larly twenty feet deep from the drift-rope, and extending 

 from three quarters of a mile to a mile, or even a mile and 

 a half, depending on the number of nets belonging to the 

 party or company engaged in fishing together. When 

 the whole of the nets are thus lianded out, the drift-rope is 

 shifted from the stern to the bow of the vessel, and she 

 rides by it as if at anchor. The benefit gained by the 

 boat's hanging at the end of the drift-rope is, that the net 

 is kept strained in a straight line, which, without this pull 

 upon it, would not be the case. The nets are shot in the 

 evening, and sometimes haided once during the night, at 

 others allowed to remain in the water all night. The fish 

 roving in the dark through the water, hang in the meshes 

 of the net, which are large enough to admit them beyond 

 the gill-covers and pectoral fins, but not large enough to 

 allow the thickest part of the body to pass through. In 

 the morning early, preparations are made for hauling the 

 nets. A capstan on the deck is manned, about which two 

 turns of the drift-rope are taken. One man stands forward 

 to untie the upper edge of each net from the drift-rope, 

 which is called casting oflf" the lashings ; others hand in the 

 net with the fish caught, to which one side of the vessel is 

 devoted ; the other side is occupied by the drift-rope, 

 which is wound in by the men at the capstan. The whole 

 of the net in, and the fish secured, the vessel runs back 

 into harbour with her fish ; or, depositing them on board 



ridie. 



some other boat in company, that carries for the party to Acanthop- 

 the nearest market, the fishing vessel remains at sea for terygii. 

 the next night's operation."^ Scombe- 



Another mode of fishing is with a hook and line, angled , 

 with a coarse rod, from a boat under rapid sail. A slice 

 from the mackerel's own body affords an excellent bait, 

 and even a piece of scarlet cloth or leather is often used 

 with great success. The line is weighed down by a heavy 

 plummet ; and when the fish are numerous, two men h ill 

 thus capture from 500 to 1000 in a single day. It is a 

 singular fact, that the common mackerel has no swimming 

 bladder, although that organ is found in several closely al- 

 lied species. What necessity of nature, Cuvier asks, can 

 require it in the one, and not in the other ? What can have 

 produced it ? lliese are great problems, both in the study 

 of final causes, and in the general philosophy of nature. 



Genus Thvnnus, Cuv. A kind of corselet round the 

 thorax, formed by scales larger and coarser than those of 

 the rest of the body ; sides of the tail with a cartilaginous 

 keel between the two crests above mentioned. The ante- 

 rior dorsal is prolonged almost to the posterior one. 



The tunny ( T7t. vulgaris, Cuv.; Scomber t/iytinus, Linn.), 

 (Plate CCCII. fig. 3), is one of the largest fishes of the 

 ocean.^ When it weighs only a hundred pounds, the Sar- 

 dinians give it the name of scn?iipirro, a diminutive deriv- 

 ed from Scomber. When above that weight, and onwards 

 to three hundred pounds, it is called mezzo-tonno, or half 

 tunny. The larger individuals frequently weigh a thou- 

 sand pounds ; and Cetti asserts that old males are taken 

 occasionally weighing eighteen hundred pounds.** The 

 fishery of the tunny dates from the most remote anti- 

 quity ; and the city of Byzantium was more especially 

 enriched by it. The shoals which entered the Bosphorus 

 were said to meet near Chalcedon with a white rock, 

 which so terrified them that they turned into the Gulf 

 of Byzantium, now the port of Constantinople. It was, 

 according to Cuvier, in consequence of this abundance 

 of tunnies, that the gulf in question received the name 

 of the Golden Horn ; and the oracle of Apollo designat- 

 ed Chalcedon as the Cih/ of lite Blind, because its foun- 

 ders did not perceive the inferiority of its site in relation 

 to these valued fish. Gibbon, however, tells us, that 

 " the curve which it describes might be compared to the 

 horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety, 

 to that of an ox. The epithet golden was expressive of 

 the riches which every wind wafted from the most dis- 

 tant countries into the secure and capacious port of Con- 

 stantinople." The same prodigious quantities of the 

 tunny are still seen there as in ancient times. According 

 to Syllius, twenty vessels might be filled by a single cast 

 of the net ; and they may frequently be taken by the 

 hand without the aid of nets. W'hen ascending towards- 

 the port, they may be killed with stones; and even wo- 

 men take them in quantities, merely by suspending a large 

 basket by a cord iiom the windows.* The tunny fishery 

 was of still more ancient practice in the West. The Phoeni- 

 cians established it at a very early period on the coasts of 

 Spain, both within and beyond the columns of Hercules. 

 It is thus that we find the tunny on the Phoenician medals 

 of Cadiz and Carteia. Its salted preparation was known 

 to the Romans as an esteemed article, under the name 

 of Saltaiiientum Sardicum. 



The tunny fishery does not seem to be now carried on 



' " In an interesting and useful sketch of the natural history of Yarmouth and its neighbourhood, by C. and J. Paget, it is stated 

 at p. IG, tliat in lfi23, one hundred and forty-two lasts of mackerel were taken there. A last is ten thousand." 



= Britiik Fishes, p. 1-21. 



" AVe may here note, in regard to the engraved illustrations of the present treatise, that we found it impossible to maintain a pro- 

 portional size in our figures. Thus the liinny, a gigantic species, appears, upon the plate above referred to, as smaller than its neigh- 

 bour Toxotcs jaculalnr, which is scarcely more than half a foot long. 



♦ Hiitoire Nalurelk ds Sardaigne, t. iii. 134, 135. • De Constantino^. Topograpftia, in praeC 



