290 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



of 394,495 barrels. The fluctuations in the catch year by year from 1804 to 1881 are shown most 

 instructively in a plate accompanying this report. 



The stories which are told by experienced fishermen of the immense numbers of Mackerel 

 sometimes seen are almost incredible. Capt. King Harding, of Swampscott, Mass., described to me 

 a school which he saw in the South Channel in 1848 : " It was a windrow of fish," said he; " it was 

 about half a mile wide, and at least twenty miles long, for vessels not in sight of each other saw it 

 at about the same time. All the vessels out saw this school the same day." He saw a school off 

 Block Island, 1877, which he estimated to contain one million barrels. He could see only one edge 

 of it at a time. 



Upon the abundance of Mackerel depends the welfare of many thousands of the citizens of 

 Massachusetts and Maine. The success of the mackerel fishery is much more uncertain than that 

 of the cod fishery, .for instance, for the supply of cod is quite uniform from year to year. The 

 prospects of each season are eagerly discussed from week to week in thousands of little circles 

 along the coast, and are chronicled by the local press. The story of each successful trip is passed 

 from mouth to month, and is a matter of general congratulation in each fishing community. A 

 review of the results of the American mackerel fishery, and of the movements of the fish in each 

 part of the season, would be an important contribution to the literature of the American fisheries. 

 Materials for such a review are before me, but space will not allow that it should be presented here. 



FOOD OF THE MACKEREL. The food of the Mackerel consists, for the most part, of small 

 species of crustaceans, which abound everywhere in the sea, and which they appear to follow in 

 their migrations. They also feed upon the spawn of other fishes and upon the spawn of lobsters, 

 and prey greedily upon young fish of all kinds. 1 In the stomach of a "Tinker" Mackerel, taken 

 in Fisher's Island Sound, November 7, 1877, Dr. Bean found the remains of six kinds of fishes of 

 the anchovy, sand-lants, the smelt, the hake, the barracuda, and the silver-sides, besides numerous 

 shrimps and other crustaceans. Captain Atwood states that when large enough they devour 

 greedily large numbers of young herring several months old. Specimens taken July 18, 1871, 

 twenty miles south of Neman's Land, contained numerous specimens of the big-eyed shrimps, 

 Thymnopoda, larval crabs in the zoea and megalops stages, the young of hermit crabs, the young 

 lady crabs, Platyoniehus ocellatus, the young of two undetermined Macrura, numerous Copepoda 

 and numerous specimens of Spiriali* Gouldii, a species of Pteropod. They also feed upon the centers 

 of floating jelly-fishes (discophores). In Gaspe" the fishermen call jelly-fishes "mackerel bait." 



The greed with which Mackerel feed upon the chum, or ground menhaden bait, which is 

 thrown out to theui by the fishing-vessels, shows that they are not at all dainty in their diet, and 

 will swallow without hesitation any kind of floating organic matter. 



Large Mackerel often eat smaller ones. Captain Collins has frequently found young Mackerel 

 three or four inches long in the stomachs of those full grown. This is generally noticeable only in 

 the fall, and the young fish are probably those which have been hatched in the spring. 



In the fall of 1874 the writer made a trip upon a gill-net schooner to the grounds off Portland, 

 Maine, some distance to sea, for the purpose of studying the food of the Mackerel, and found their 

 stomachs full of a species of Thysanopoda and of a large copepod crustacean. The greater part of 

 the food of Mackerel consists, however, of minute crustaceans. Owing to the infinite abundance 

 of these in the sea, Mackerel probably have very little difficulty in finding food at almost any 

 portion of the ocean visited by them, whether on the edge of the Gulf Stream or near the shore. 



'Near the New London light- house is a Hmall brook which empties into th harbor and abounds with a small 

 species of fish of which the Mackerel appear to be fond. A few days since tli keeper of the light-house, while the 

 Mackerel were indulging in a meal, caught five hundred at one haul with a scoop-net. Gloucester Telegraph, 

 December 3, 1870. 



