[25] HISTORY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY. 



able to ascertain these facts so clearly and so well, and that he was 

 very much pleased with them. I watched the growth of these young- 

 mackerel all along, and I saw them grow considerably from month to 

 mouth, so much so that the same fall, in the latter part of October, I 

 caught some of them with a very small mesh net and found they had 

 grown to a length of 6£ or 7 inches. I kept a small quantity of them, 

 split, salted, and packed them, in accordance with the Massachusetts 

 inspection law, as No. 4 ? s, and, since mackerel were then scarce and 

 very high in price, I sold them for as much as $6 a barrel." 



"Much yet remains to be learned in regard to the spawning season 

 of the American mackerel" (writes Professor Baird), "and little more 

 is known of this except in regard to the European variety. It is, how- 

 ever, well established by the researches of Sars that this fish, like the 

 cod, and many of the flat fish, &c, spawns in the open sea, sometimes 

 at a great distance from the land, at others closer in shore. Sars found 

 them on the outer banks of the coast of Norway; and Mr. Matthew 

 Dunn, of Mevagissey, England, communicates to Land and Water of his 

 observations of mackerel found, with ripe spawn, 6 miles from the 

 coast.* 



"Thefish taken in the wiers and pounds on Vineyard Sound and about 

 Cape Cod, in the early spring, are tilled with ripe spawn; and that the 

 operation of spawning on the American coast is shown by the immense 

 schools of small fish that are taken throughout the summer, of various 

 sizes, from a few inches up, and from Buzzard's Bay to Portland and 

 Penobscot Bay. No species of young fish is, at times, more abundant 

 throughout the summer season than the mackerel. 



"The egg of the mackerel is exceedingly minute, not larger than that 

 of the alewii'e or gaspereau. It appears to be free from an adhesive en- 

 velope, such as pertains to the egg of the herring, and in consequence 

 of which it agglutinates together, and adheres to gravel, the rocks, or 

 the sea-weed at the bottom. As with the egg of the cod, that of the 



* SPAWNING OF MACKEREL. 



Sir: I have been again fortunate in taking a mackerel alive in the act of spawning, 

 on the night of May 10, about 6 miles from land. A better specimen couhl not possi-* 

 bly be had, and the roe ran freely without assistance. I got a bucket of sea- water, 

 and allowed the fish to spawn in it; for some time I had a difficulty in finding what 

 became of it, as the globules would not reflect the light of the candle like the pilchard 

 spawn; but by running the water into a clean bottle, and holding it to the light, I 

 lound them floating on the surface, but not so buoyaut as the pilchard roe. In this 

 state they continued for about half an hour, aud then gradually sank to the bottom; 

 but, unlike the pilchard spawn, they retained their vitality there for more than 

 twelve hours. With the daylight the globules could scarcely be discerned by looking 

 directly down into the water; but on holding it towards the light in a bottle they 

 could be seeu, with that healthy, bright, silvery hue so peculiar to living ones, each 

 marked with a dark spot in the center. Believing the pilchard spawn would have 

 reached you, I did not semi you any of these. As I sent that spawn by post, I sup- 

 pose the bottle must have been broken in the post-bag. — Matthias Dunn (Mevagissey, 

 Cornwall, May 15, 1871.) (Land and Water, May 20, 353.) 



