208 The Bonito 



in the Indian Ocean, in the North and South Pacific 

 Ocean, nearly always remote from any land, and 

 I have many times noticed the female roe bursting 

 ripe. But where they had proposed to go to spawn 

 was always a problem far beyond my ken, or ability 

 to elucidate. Indeed, there is a great deal to be done 

 for oceanic ichthyology, in spite of the wonderful 

 work of the American Government expedition in that 

 direction. It has accomplished an immense amount 

 of valuable work, but one feels that only the fringe 

 of the subject has yet been touched. The Natural 

 History of the sea calls for the unpaid work of en- 

 thusiastic amateurs like the Prince of Monaco, who, 

 with great wealth at his disposal, refuses to waste 

 his life in the idiotic dissipations of European capitals, 

 choosing rather the absorbingly interesting (and much 

 less expensive) pursuit of studying the deep-sea fauna 

 in his beautiful yacht, the ' Princess Alice.' 



Even the study of so essentially a surface-fish as 

 the Bonito is attended by many apparently insur- 

 mountable difficulties ; what then must be the case 

 with fish who rarely, if ever, rise to within a hundred 

 fathoms of the sea-surface of their own accord ? And 

 then one of the greatest incentives to close investigation 

 of the habits of any creature is entirely absent in the 

 case of deep-sea fish, i.e. that of commercial gain. 

 While there are many of them, and especially the more 

 accessible ones, fairly good eating, they flourish remote 

 from markets of any kind, and they are never likely 

 to be taken in any quantity. Moreover, they take 

 far too kindly to salt, as do indeed all the mackerel 

 tribe. American salted mackerel is a thing of horror 

 to most of us who like salt in moderation. To my 

 mind it tastes like solidified brine, with a flavour of 

 fish. And no amount of soaking or parboiling seems 



