244 THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



June and July, taken in numbers in drift-nets a few leagues 

 from the shore. R. Couch observed that he had seen 8000 

 enclosed in one pilchard seine-net. The largest catch of 

 these fishes at Mevagissey, where they are annual visitors, 

 has been 100,000 (Dunn). It has been taken with a bait. 



Breeding. The eggs of the Scombresox saurus are 

 furnished externally with filaments as in the gar-fish, while 

 the life-history of the two is also very similar, but the 

 young of the skipper appear to be found further out to sea, 

 and the base of the maxilla is more concealed by the pre- 

 orbital. Lutken (Spolia Atlantica), p. 567, has figured the 

 heads of this species from a very early age up to that of 

 the full-grown, showing how the jaws are gradually 

 evolved, the disproportion between the length of the two 

 being much less than occurs in Belone. 



As food. Said to be fair eating. 



Habitat. Atlantic coasts of Europe, Africa, and North 

 America ; also the Mediterranean. 



Lowe observed that last year (1775) such a glut of these 

 fish set into the head of Kerston Bay, that they could be 

 taken in pailsful ; numbers were caught, and heaps flung 

 ashore. They were from 9 to 12 inches long, and had not 

 been observed there previously. Lowe considered they had 

 been driven out of their course. As a rule in the Orkneys 

 and Zetland it is rare ; also at Banff and Aberdeen ; 

 St. Andrews, not uncommon ; while it enters the Firth of 

 Forth almost every autumn in considerable shoals, and, 

 being stupid, inactive fishes, are found in hundreds on the 

 shallows when the tide retires, with their long noses 

 imbedded in the mud (Pennant). The same author records 

 great numbers having been thrown ashore on the Leith 

 sands near Edinburgh, after a great storm in November, 

 1768. In Yorkshire occasionally taken in harbours and 



