2S8 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



melanora, the tench, and many other fresh-water fish have the burrowing habit, some of them 

 being imbedded very deep in the mud at the bottom of a dried-np pond, to emerge again when the 

 water is restored. 



"The entire disappearance of Mackerel during the winter season is a noteworthy fact, as we can 

 hardly suppose that if it schooled on the surface in the Gulf Stream during that season it would 

 not be noticed by the experienced eyes of sea captains, and we can hardly imagine that the fish 

 would remain in the depths, without an occasional rise. 



"It appears to be a well-established fact that Mackerel are not unfrequently found in the 

 stomachs of cod, and possibly of halibut, taken on the George's Banks in the winter season. Per- 

 haps the number noted would be still larger if fishermen had the time and inclination to examine 

 more frequently than they do the stomachs of the fish captured by them. 



''Another curious fact in relation to the Mackerel is in respect to the membrane, the vertical 

 edge of which is observed during the summer season on the corner of the eye. This, it is claimed, 

 during the winter extends over the whole eye, and imparts the appearance of blindness. This the 

 Mackerel is said to possess on making its first appearance near the coast in the spring, when it 

 extends over the greater part of the eye, thus preventing the fish from seeing the bait, and it is a 

 matter of common remark that Mackerel in the spring cannot be taken with the hook, but must be 

 captured with the net. The membrane appears to recede with the advancing season, and during 

 a considerable portion of the time of its abode in the north it is scarcely appreciable." 



Mr. Perley, of Saint John, .New Brunswick, in his work upon the fishes of the Provinces, 

 remarks that Mackerel have been taken on cod-hooks in deep water, near Grand Manan, in the 

 winter season, and there is evidence to show that a few remain on the coast. It is, however, 

 believed that these cases are exceptional and confined to stragglers, as such instances frequently 

 occur with all the migratory fishes. 



The Mackerel belongs to what may technically be termed pelagic or wandering fish, as their 

 movements, something like those of the herring, are apparently more or less capricious, though 

 probably governed by some definite law, which has not yet been worked out. It moves in large 

 schools or bands, more or Jess isolated from each other, which sometimes swim near the surface 

 and give distinct evidence of their presence, and at others sink down into the depths of the ocean 

 and are entirely withdrawn from observation. The army of fish, however, moves along with a 

 very broad front, a portion coming so close to the shore as to be taken in the weirs and traps 

 along the coast of the Middle States, especially in Vineyard Sound and on Cape Cod; while at the 

 same time other schools are met with from twenty to fifty miles, or even more, out to sea. It is, 

 however, still a question whether the fish that skirt the coast of the United States enter the Bay 

 of Saint Lawrence, or whether the latter belong to another series, coming directly from the deep 

 seas off the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia coast. Until lately the former has been the generally 

 accepted theory, in view of the alleged fact that the fishermen of the Nova Scotia coast always 

 take the fish coining from the west in the spring and from the oast in the fall. 



Capt. Hanson B. Joyce, of Swan's Island. Maine, one of the most expert and observing mack- 

 erel-fishermen of New England, thinks that the movements of the spring schools of Mackerel are 

 very much influenced by the direction and force of the prevailing winds while the fish are perform- 

 ing their northerly migration. He has generally found, he says, that when there has been a con- 

 tinuance of strong northerly winds about the last of May and early in June, the season at which tln^ 

 Mackerel are passing the shoals of Nantucket and George's Bank, the schools have taken a 

 southerly track, passing to the southward of George's Shoals and continuing on in an easterly 

 direction to the coast of Nova Scotia, and thence to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. 



