194 ACANTHOPTERYGII. MACKEREL FAMILY. 



there have been noticed on our own shores many 

 specimens which bear the closest resemblance to 

 them, and which have been provisionally catalogued 

 by Mr. Jenyns, a doubt existing whether the smaller 

 fish is any thing more than the young of the larger. 

 The smaller has been noticed by Mr. Turton as fre- 

 quently found at Swansea ; and the larger was de- 

 scribed by Mr. Couch in Loudon's Magazine for 

 1832, from which source w T e now take our description. 

 The Spanish Mackerel sometimes attains the weight 

 of 4 or 5 lbs. The mouth, head, and eyes are very 

 large; the dorsal fin has seven rays, whilst the 

 common has twelve ; rays of the gill membrane six, 

 concealed. Colour dark blue on the back, striped 

 like the Mackerel, but more obscurely, and with 

 fewer stripes ; a row of large dark spots runs from 

 the pectoral fin to the tail, and the sides and belly 

 are thickly covered with smaller dusky spots ; the 

 tail, gill-covers, sides, and beneath the eye, being 

 bright yellow. From the Mackerel, which it re- 

 sembles, this fish differs in the markings of the 

 head, the head and snout being larger, the eye 

 and gape larger, and in having scales on the anterior 

 gill-covers : the body is not nearly so much attenu- 

 ated posteriorly ; the ventrals are sharp and slender, 

 and the pectorals lie close to the body. — This fish 

 is scarce, but some are captured every year. It 

 does not often take the bait, although the fishermen 

 inform me it sometimes does; and that its infre- 

 quency is owing to the difference of feeding rather 

 than want of rapacity. It is most frequently taken 



