128 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



shir-net or seine, will point their heads down in the bottom of 

 sand or weeds, and the nets glide over their backs without 

 capturing one. Two intelligent fishermen of the south side 

 of Long Island, men well learned in their trade, and who 

 have for many years followed fishing successfully, concluded 

 that they would turn their exclusive attention to the Spanish 

 mackerel, and, by studying their habits and watching their 

 movements, invent some plan for their capture, and thus en- 

 rich themselves. They persevered for three years, trying all 

 sorts of artificial lures, differently constructed nets and fykes, 

 set in different ways, besides employing the Spanish casting- 

 net ; but their patience became so exhausted that they re- 

 linquished the enterprise, and had learned to look at a shoal 

 leaping so that thousands were above the wave at a time 

 without causing the . slightest emotion or sensation of either 

 hope or fear. A few silly fish occasionally stray away from 

 their shoal, and are found in a fyke or pound, and an occasion- 

 al one hooks himself by indulging a dangerous curiosity; but 

 the genius who will invent a successful method for taking 

 the Spanish mackerel may be as sure of -a fortune as the person 

 who owns a goose which lays a large egg of gold every day. 

 The Spanish mackerel is much more beautiful than the 

 dolphin, even when the latter is dying. Its back and sides, 

 down to the corrugated lateral line, are dark blue, shot with 

 purple and gold; below the line it is pink and gold for a 

 short way, terminating in a white belly. The shaded parts 

 of the body are ornamented with spots of gold, like new gold 

 dollars, to the number of between' twenty and thirty. Its 

 scales are imperceptible to the naked eye, but they extend a 

 short way up the fins also. The first dorsal is spinous-rayed, 

 and the first rays of the second dorsal and pectoral are spin- 

 ous ; all the rest are soft, though the tail and anal fins are 

 nearly rigid or set, and do not fall together or close like those 

 of the common mackerel. There is a small adipose fin on 

 each side extending from the tail three inches upward.. Its 

 head is a perfect cut-water, carved most artistically, and small 



