large size and the method of tying thenip and which are very well known 

 in Sicily) have been found in the past in the tuna taken in those 

 fisheries, although almost all of them have been lost through carelessness. 

 These tuna had been hooked in their passage, immediately preceding, 

 through the Strait of Messina, where fishing is practiced as far as 

 Scaletta and Giardinio 



The traps for returning tuna fish with their mouths turned pre- 

 cisely toward the north, that is with the north side of the "lead," and 

 the hooks confirm that the tuna advance precisely in that direction, 

 from north to south. Very probably a_ part of the tuna which congregate 

 in the spawning season along the northern coast of Sicily traverse the 

 Strait of Messina and descend along the eastern coast^ , where they 

 supports together with those which reproduce on the spotp the fishreries 

 for returning tuna,, 



On the other hand there have hardly been any notices of hooks 

 from Messina found in the fisheries for outbound tuna in Calabria and 

 northern Sicily; which means that the mass of the tuna which support 

 these fisheries do not traverse, immediately before arriving, the 

 Strait of Messina, 



3) The passage of tuna through the Strait of Gibraltar is by 

 this time an ascertained phenomenon and, what is more important, the 

 very large number of Atlantic hooks (25) found in the Mediterranean 

 testifies that this occurs on a large scaler -- The idea that the tuna 

 of the Mediterranean are separate from those of the Atlantic was so 

 rooted from the time of Pavesi on (no less so that was the contrary 

 theory anciently), that an effort was made to interpret my first findings 

 of hooks as quite accidental discoveries, which could even be due to 

 the occasional employment in the Mediterranean of hooks typical of the 

 Atlantic on the part of sailors on sailing ships and on coastal vessel So 



But my investigations would make me deny that this occurs in prac-= 

 tice,, and in any case, given the number of hooks found,, elementary 

 considerations of probability suffice here to give certainty. 



The so-called proofs of the isolation of the Mediterranean have 

 been repeated to satiety, they being that of the non-passage of the tuna 

 through Gibraltar, and that the tuna reproduces in the Mediterranean 

 and is found there throughout the year (Pavesi )i that the number of tuna 

 present in the other months is sufficient to be in proportion with the 

 number which is captured in the tuna fisheries in the spawning season 

 (Roule)§ that the beginnings -'' the seasons of the Spanish and Mediter- 

 ranean tuna fisheries are contemporaneous (Pavesi), an-' affirmation 

 which is not completely exact; that the number of returning tuna taken 

 in the Spanish and Portuguese fisheries is equal to or greater than the 

 catch of eastbound fish (De Bragancaj Roulej, etco), which argument can 

 perhaps serve, if at all, and only up to a certain point, to show that 

 tuna once accustomed to the Spanish shores do not continue to migrate 

 from coast to coast toward the east along the banks of the Mediterranean, 



