ij [9] 
immense number of individuals in the water. As has been shown, how- 
ever, there is good reason for believing that the quantity has varied from 
time to time in the past, and it may be that natural causes, of which 
we are still ignorant, and over which we have no control, may eause 
a like variation in the future. 
THE SPANISH MACKEREL. 403 
6.—Foop. 
No careful examination has yet been made of the stomach contents 
of the Spanish mackerel, and little is knownof his food, beyond the knowl- 
edge of its habit of feeding upon various small fishes, chief among which 
are menhaden and alewives, of which it consumes enormous quantities. 
It is an exceedingly voracious fish, its powerful jaws, armed with strong 
teeth, being peculiarly adapted to cutting and tearing its prey; and, like 
the blue-fish, it often mutilates its victims, biting only a small portion from 
the body, and leaving the remainder to be eaten by other fishes that follow 
inits wake. It seems probable that its food consists almost exclusively 
.of these small fishes, and that it seldom, if ever, preys upon the inverte- 
brates of the bottom, as it is inno sense a “bottom feeder.” In speaking 
of the foog of the mackerel, Mr. Scott says: ‘These fish surround a shoal 
of gar-eels, butter-fish, shiners, spearing or young menhaden, when the 
tiny bait—anxious to escape—rise to the surface, followed by the Spanish 
mackerel, which may be seen two miles distant, leaping, a thousand at 
a time, their forked tails conspicuous, and their bodies gleaming like 
miniature rainbows.”* 
7.—REPRODUCTION. » 
Prior to 1880 nothing was definitely known regarding the spawning 
habits of the Spanish mackerel. Neither the time nor place of spawn- 
ing had been discovered. Mr. Scott had surmised that they spawned 
in the waters of our Atlantic States in the spring, as small ones 
which he supposed to be the young of the previous year were oceasion- 
ally seen in June.t Prof. Goode, in his Game Fishes, had ventured the 
assertion that they probably spawned in mid-winter, in the Gulf of 
Mexico and about the West Indies. These were, as far we know, the 
only writers that had referred to the spawning habits of the mackerel. 
During an extended tour of the Atlantic coast, in company with Col. 
Marshall McDonald, the writer had an excellent opportunity for examin- 
ing the species in different localities, and succeeded in proving that the 
theory advanced by Mr. Scott was the more nearly correct, and that 
the Spanish mackerel spawn along many portions of the Atlantic coast 
*Fishing in American Waters, by Genio C. Scott, 1875, p. 129. 
+The following is the language of Mr. Scott on this point: ‘‘Both the Spanish 
mackerel and cero are spring-spawning fishes, and no doubt spawn in our bays, for 
there are occasionally small ones taken by the anglers in June, before the large ones 
visit our shores, and I argue, thererore, that the small half-pounders are of last year’s 
hatch.”—Ibid., p. 129. 
