600 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



North Sea, and afterwards on the coast of Scotland and Ireland in 

 January and February, on their way to the Atlantic. Here their 

 great army is divided into two : one branch passes along the Spanish 

 and Portuguese coasts, while the other enters the Channel. In May 

 they appear on the coasts of England and France. In June they 

 reach Holland. In July one portion of them returns to the Baltic, 

 while another skirts the coast of Norway on its way to winter 

 quarters. 



Lacepede estimated that this migration, which is so regular, and its 

 stages so rigorously indicated, was irreconcilable with a great number 

 of very precise observations ; and he arrived at the conclusion that the 

 mackerel passes the winter at the bottom of the sea, more or less 

 remote from the coast, which they again approach in the spring. 

 At the commencement of the fine season they advance towards the 

 shore which best agreed with them, showing themselves often on the 

 surface, like the tunny, traversing the sea in courses more or less direct 

 or sinuous, but never following the periodical circle which has been so 

 ingeniously traced out for them. 



Mr. Milne Edwards also remarks that, if these legions of fishes 

 ascended from the Polar seas, they ought to visit the Orkneys before 

 they appeared in the Channel, and enter the Mediterranean later in 

 the season ; but he is assured that they appear at the Orkneys late in 

 the season. It appears, in short, that there are different varieties 

 which haunt the several neighbourhoods in which they abound. 



The largest mackerel are taken at the entrance of the Channel, 

 but they are considered less delicate than the smaller fishes. The 

 shoals of mackerel, it appears, never enter the Gulf of Gascony, but 

 they abound along the shores of Brittany up to the North Sea. It is 

 about the month of April that they begin to be met with, but they are 

 still small and without milt or roe. In the months of June and July 

 the fish is in its most perfect state. Towards the end of September 

 and October mackerel of the same year's birth are taken ; finally, in 

 November and December, the fishermen still fish them, and send 

 them to market, but this is an irregularity, and the fishermen of 

 Lowestoft and Yarmouth take their great harvest in May and June ; 

 in the Firth of Forth, and on the north coast of Scotland, at a few 

 weeks later. 



As mackerel are very voracious, they greedily devour all sorts of 



