TIIK MACKKIIKL AND ITS ALLIES. 281 



L. THE MACKEREL AND ITS ALLIES. 



95 THE MACKEREL SCOMBER SCOMBRUS 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION The common Mackerel, Scomber ncombrun, is an inhabitant 

 of the North Atlantic Ocean. On our coast its southern limit is in the neighborhood of Cape Hat- 

 teras in early spring. The fishing schooners of New Hngland find schools of them in this region 

 at some distance from the shore, but there is no record of their having been taken in any numbers 

 in shoal water south of Long Island. A. W. Simpson states that the species has been observed in 

 the sounds about Cape Hatteras in August, September, and October. It. E. Earll finds evidence 

 that stragglers occasionally enter the Chesai>eake. Along the coasts of the Middle States and of 

 New England Mackerel abound throughout the summer mouths, and are also found in great num- 

 bers in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where, in past years, fishermen of the United States congre- 

 gated in great numbers to participate in their capture. They are also found on the coast of 

 Labrador, though there is no evidence that they ordinarily frequent the waters north of the Straits 

 of Belle Isle. 



Captain Atwood 1 has expressed the opinion that they vis'c Northern Labrador only in seasons 

 remarkable for the prevalence of westerly winds, and that in other seasons they do not go so far 

 north. 



Professor Hind was told by the residents of Aillik and Kypokok, Labrador, one hundred 

 and fifty miles northwest of Hamilton Inlet, that Mackerel were abundant there in 1871, and that 

 a few were caught in cod-seines. While at Double Island harbor, some fifteen miles north of 

 Hopedale, a French Canadian resident informed him that there is "a scattering of Mackerel' 1 on 

 that part of the coast. 



They appear also at times to have been abundant on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, 

 though their appearance there is quite irregular. Mackerel do not occur in Hudson's Bay nor on 

 the coast of Greenland. It seems probable that the natural northern limit of the species in the 

 Western Atlantic is not far from the Straits of Belle Isle. Professor Packard, who visited this 

 region in 1866, recorded that a few Mackerel are taken in August in Salmon Bay and Red Bay, but 

 that the Straits of Belle Isle were evidently the northern limits of the genus, while Fortin, one of 

 the best Canadian authorities on fisheries, in his annual report for 1864, stated that in summer 

 they appear in some places, such as Little Mecattina, on the adjoining coast, latitude 50 north, 

 and even sometimes enter the Straits of Belle Isle.* 



1 Proceedings, Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 10, p. 66. 



'In 1860 Capt. Peter Avery, of the schooner Alabama, of Provincetown, took 100 barrels of fat Mackerel at Port 

 au Port, Newfoundland. Captain Atwood, however, has seen them at the Bay of Islands. He has also seen largo 

 schools at Mecattina. 



Capt. J. W. Collins writes: "As early as 1837 or 183(3, Capt. Stephen Rich, of Gloucester, spent almost the entire 

 mackerel -fishing season on the coast of Labrador in pursuit, of Mackerel. He was induced by the reports brought him 

 by the Labrador cod-fishermen to make this attempt. They had reported seeing Mackerel abundant in the vicinity of 

 the Straits of Belle Isle, and Captain Rich, being of an adventurous turn, decided to devote one summer to the \\\\- 

 gation of the subject, feeling in hoped of obtaining a largo catch. My father was one of the crow, and I have often 

 heard him tell that the trip was entirely unsuccessful, notwithstanding the tact that they cru ised all the w.-i\ fnmi 

 Mecattiiia Islands through the Straits of Belle Isle, and on the northwest coast of Newfoundland as far down ax the 

 Bay of Inland.-. I'ew or no Mackerel wen- taken until the vessel returned in the fall to the southern part of the Gulf 

 of Saint Lawrence,, where a small fare was obtained in a few weeks' tUhing." 



