[15] HISTORY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY. 



Harding, of Swampscott, Mass., described to rne a school which he saw 

 iii the South Channel in 1848: "It was a windrow of fish," said he; 

 " it was about half a mile wide, and at least twenty miles long, for vessels 

 not in sight of each other saw it at about the same time. All the vessels 

 out saw this school the same day." He saw a school off Block Island, 

 1877, which he estimated to contain one million barrels. He could see 

 only one edge of it at a time. 



Upon the abundance of mackerel depends the welfare of many thou- 

 sands of the citizens of Massachusetts and Maine. The success of the 

 mackerel fishery is much more uncertain than that of the cod fishery, 

 for instance, for the supply of cod is quite uniform from year to year. 

 The prospects of each season are eagerly discussed from week to week 

 in thousands of little circles along the coast, and are chronicled by the 

 local press. The story of each successful trip is passed from mouth to 

 mouth, and is a matter of general congratulation in each fishing com- 

 munity. A review of the results of the American mackerel fishery, and 

 of the movements of the fish in each part of the season year by year, 

 would be an important contribution to the literature of the American 

 fisheries. Materials for such a review are before me, but space will not 

 allow that it should be presented here. 



4. — Food. 



The food of the mackerel consists, for the most part, of small species 

 of crustaceans, which abound everywhere in the sea, and which they 

 appear to follow in their migrations. They also feed upon the spawn 

 of other fishes and upon the spawn of lobsters, and prey greedily upon 

 young fish of all kinds.* In the stomach of a "tinker" mackerel, taken 

 in Fisher's Island Sound, November 7, 1877, Dr. Beau found the remains 

 of six kinds of fishes — of the anchovy, the sand-lance, the smelt, the 

 hake, the barracuda, and the silver-sides, besides numerous shrimps and 

 other crustaceans. Captain Atwood states that when large enough they 

 devour greedily large numbers of young herring several months old. 

 Specimens taken July 18, 1871, 20 miles south of Koman's Land, con- 

 tained numerous specimens of the big-eyed shrimps, Thysanopoda, 

 larval crabs in the zoea and megalops stages, the young of hermit 

 crabs, the young lady crabs, Platyonichus ocellatus, the young of two 

 undetermined Macrura, numerous Copepoda, and numerous specimens 

 of Spirialis Gouldii, a species of Pteropod. They also feed upon the 

 centers of floating jelly-fishes (Discophores). In Gaspe the fishermen 

 call jelly-fishes "mackerel bait." 



The greed with which mackerel feed upon the chum, or ground men- 



*Near the New London light-house is a small brook which empties into the harbor 

 and abounds with a small species of fish of which the mackerel appear to be fond. 



A few days since the keeper of the light-house, while the mackerel were indulging 

 in a meal, caught five hundred at one haul with a scoop-net. — (Gloucester Telegraph, 

 December 3, 1870.) 



