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I.^NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MACKEREL. 



A.— LIFE HISTOEY OF THE MACKEREL. 

 1. — Geographical distribution. 



The common mackerel, Scomber scomhrus, is an inhabitant of the North 

 Atlantic Ocean. On our coast its southern limit is in the neighborhood 

 of Cape Hatteras in early spring. The fishing schooners of New En- 

 gland find schools of them in this region at some distance from the shore, 

 but there is no record of their having been taken in any numbers in shoal 

 water south of Long Island. A. W. Simjison states that the species has 

 been observed in the sounds about Cape Hatteras in August, September, 

 and October. K. E. Earll finds evidence that stragglers occasionally enter 

 the Chesapeake. Along the coasts of the Middle States and of New En- 

 gland mackerel abound throughout the summer months, and are also 

 found in great numbers in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where, in i^ast 

 years, fishermen of the United States congregated in great numbers to 

 participate in their capture. They are also found on the coast of 

 Labrador, though there is no evidence that they ordinarily fi'equent 

 the waters north of the Straits of Belle Isle. 



Captain Atwood* has expressed the opinion that they visit Northern 

 Labrador only in seasons remarkable for the prevalence of westerly 

 winds, and that in colder seasons they do not go so far north. 



Professor Hind was told by the residents of Aillik and Kypokok, 

 Labrador, 150 miles northwest of Hamilton Inlet, that mackerel were 

 abundant there in 1871, and that a few were caught in cod-seines. 

 While at Double Island harbor, some fifteen miles north of Hopedale, a 

 French Canadian resident informed him that there is "a scattering of 

 mackerel" on that part of the coast. 



They appear also at times to have been abundant on the northeast- 

 ern coast of Newfoundland, though their apjjearance there is quite 

 irregular. Mackerel do not occur in Hudson's Bay nor on the coast of 

 Greenland. It seems probable that the natural northern limit of the 

 species in the Western Atlantic is not far from the Straits of Belle Isle. 

 Professor Packard, who visited this region in 1 SGO, recorded that a few 

 mackerel are taken in August in Salmon Bay and Bed Bay, but that the 

 Straits of Belle Isle were evidently the northern limits of the genus, while 

 Fortin, one of the best Canadian authorities on fisheries, in his annual 

 report for 1864, stated that in summer they appear in some places, such 



* Proceedings Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 10, p. G6. 

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