THE MACKEREL. 295 



Of these latter we had, during about an hour and a quarter's 

 observation, four very fine ones, with long bright tails, on the 

 llth; nine on the 12th; and one magnificent fellow, that lighted 

 up the deck, sails, and rigging of the yacht with a strange 

 greenish glare, on the 13th. This last was at 11 '5 P.M. One of 

 the men said that before daybreak on the 12th there were some 

 very large and bright meteors. As far as my observations went, 

 the course of these meteors seemed to be mainly to the west and 

 south-west, although two at least of the larger ones rushed in a 

 directly opposite path, namely, to east and north-east. As I am 

 likely to be at sea in November, though in a very different kind of 

 craft, I will endeavour to give you a more careful and satisfactory 

 account of the meteor display of that month. I may tell you that 

 one of the men caught a scad of large size, the biggest, I believe, I 

 ever saw. It weighed nearly four pounds. I thought it not bad 

 eating, though the rest of them in the cabin said it was coarse and 

 tasteless. It was caught by a long line and herring baited hook, 

 that was allowed to drag after the ship in a breeze that gave us at 

 the time a speed of at least eight knots an hour." 



The fish referred to by our correspondent is also called the 

 Spanish mackerel, it being very common on some parts of the 

 Spanish coast. It belongs to the order Scomberidce, and is a cousin 

 of our own better known mackerel proper, though a considerably 

 larger fish, and not nearly so good for the table as its beautiful 

 congener. The Spanish differs from the mackerel proper in one 

 very remarkable particular ; it has an air bladder which the true 

 mackerel of our shores has not, and yet the latter is one of the 

 readiest and swiftest swimmers, and at all depths, of any fish in the 

 sea. The fact is that the real use of the air bladder in the economy 

 of fish still continues an unresolved and seemingly an unresolvable 

 puzzle. 



Lovers of living, healthy poetry healthy as the mountain 



