46 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



That law of nature, though, which impels the migration of 

 ■^ome genera to distant waters of the ocean is most wonderful. 

 Many Herring and Codfish come to us from the Arctic seas, 

 the former are the surplus production of that great storehouse 

 thrown off, never to return ; furnishing in their distant jour- 

 ney, food to the barbarians of the coast, and wealth and occu- 

 pation to vast numbers of civilized men ; and their yearly 

 advent is looked for, and depended upon, with as much confi- 

 dence as the return of summer. 



The Scombridae, embracing the different species of Mack- 

 erel, come to our latitudes from the south ; their natal shores 

 and waters unknown ; they come all of them adult fish, fur- 

 nishing food and employment to thousands, as well as a great 

 maritime school for seamen ; it is most likely that most of 

 these also never return to the regions from which they mi- 

 grated. 



Many fish which are bred in the Gulf of Mexico, and the 

 bays and inlets of our southern coast, arrive in our waters 

 mature fish, and are found all summer in our markets. 

 Amongst these are the splendid Spanish Mackerel, the 

 Sheepshead, Croaker, Barb, Spot, and Mullet. These we may 

 reasonably set down as the surplus production of the waters 

 where they breed, and probably never return from their long 

 northern journey. They are not known to us before the age 

 of puberty, whih/ their young are found in great shoals in the 

 shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and our southern bays. 



The Sheepshead, in the New Orleans and Mobile markets, 

 are most of them pan-fish, from a half-pound to a pound and 

 a half in weight, while they are seldom found in this latitude 

 below four or five pounds. From any point of the southern 

 coast which approaches the Gulf Stream, fish, by coming up 

 with its current, would be sensible of little or no change of 

 temperature. One cause of the migration of southern fish 



