22 



that month they arc small but in excellent condition as 

 food. 



Before I pass away from the mackerel, on which I have 

 detained you a great deal too long, I wish to tell you of 

 another discovery of mine, which no doubt equally affects 

 all fish ; but as my observation of it was made on mackerel, 

 I confine my narrative to that fish. Its habit of shoaling 

 in the daytime taught me the curious fact that the shoal 

 leaves behind it a distinct scent in the water, and that there 

 are other inhabitants of the sea who quite understand 

 what that scent means, and utilize it. 



A shoal of fish in the water looks, at a distance, like the 

 shadow of a cloud moving steadily on. As the shade 

 nears you, you can see the fish "playing," jumping out of 

 the water just as small trout do, only in a large shoal you 

 will see thousands of fish out of the water at the same 

 time. Each sort of fish gives a colour to the water which 

 is peculiar to it, so that an experienced fisherman knows 

 at sight whether the shadow of the cloud, which he knows 

 to be a shoal of fish, covers mackerel, or pilchard, or 

 herring, or sprat. I was once standing on the beach with 

 an old fisherman when we saw a straggling shoal of fish 

 about half-a-mile long, swimming very slowly, which we 

 could not make out. Their colour was new to him. So 

 we took a boat and went out to them, and found they were 

 a shoal of huge jelly fish, great transparent things shaped 

 like an open umbrella and about its size, having around 

 the edge of the umbrella a beautiful purple fringe which 

 causes you to recollect it if you incautiously touch it. 

 On the occasion to which I refer I was standing on a 

 headland in a place called Prussia Cove, in Mount's Bay, 

 when I saw a shoal, which I knew at once to be of 

 mackerel, come out of a sandy bay there and go due west. 



