136 FISHING IN AMEEICAN WATERS. 



seven hundred and fifty pounds, was nine feet in length, and 

 six feet in circumference. The illustration here given is a 



THE HORSE MACKEREL. Genus Thynnus. 



copy of my sketch of the fish made from still life. As Gaspe 

 is a great fishing port, the " old salts" would have detected 

 this fish as a tunny, had it been one. That it is a great deli- 

 cacy for the table is proven by its marketable value, which 

 nearly equals, per pound, that of the salmon in the vicinity 

 where both fishes are taken. It is stated that this fish attains 

 to the weight of two thousand pounds, but it is very rare to 

 take one of more than a thousand. This eight-hundred- 

 pounder towed the boat to which the line of the harpoon 

 was fastened nearly five miles. They are taken, like the 

 swordfish, by sailing for them ; and when coming on a shoal, 

 or even a single one, a well-aimed harpoon is sent into the 

 fish where its head unites to the body, and then the towing- 

 line is manned carefully, and the fish tows the boat until he 

 gets fatigued, and, when in a fainting condition, the lance 

 bleeds him in the gills, and he is towed alongside until his 

 powerful rigid tail has made its last flap ; then he is raised 

 into the boat, a subject of wonder to the amateur. I think 

 the horse mackerel one of the links in the chain of fishes 

 whose head is the tunny, and which rank as follows : Tunny, 

 horse mackerel, bonetta, bluefish, Spanish mackerel, cero, 

 winding up with the common mackerel, which as the bar- 

 ber said of the baker when asked to shave a coal-heaver 

 " is as low as we go." 



It will be seen by the conformation of the horse mackerel 



