304 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



were so abundant from 1814 to 1820 that with three men and a boy and a small vessel he could 

 catch ten barrels of them, or about three thousand fish, in a day. 



The " Fishermen's Memorial and Eecord Book," published in Gloucester, contains the follow- 

 ing note: 



"In 1812 a large school of Spanish Mackerel visited this bay, and so plenty and numerous 

 were they that they would bite readily at the bare hook aud seize upon small bits of line hanging 

 from the vessel. Standing-room boats were then mostly in use, of from fifteen to twenty tons. 

 These rooms held from fifteen to twenty barrels, and the crews would catch them full in a few 

 hours. Mr. Timothy Rogers, at Eowe's Bank, bought most of these Mackerel, fresh, after being 

 dressed, at two cents per pound, salting them in his buildings, and the business, which lasted two 

 months, was a lively one. These Mackerel did not continue on this coast but a few years, and have 

 now almost entirely disappeared. There were a few caught, with the other Mackerel, as late as 

 1825, since which time it is very rare to see one during the entire season." 



Captain Oakes states that the "Thimble-eye Mackerel," or "Mixed Mackerel," were very 

 plentiful from 1826 to 1830. In 1826 he went fishing in the schooner "Delegate." The season's 

 catch amounted to fifteen hundred barrels. Perhaps twenty-five barrels of these were "Thimble- 



Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, wrote, in 1878, that sixty years ago, when he was a 

 boy, and many years afterwards, they were very abundant in Massachusetts Bay, but that he has 

 not seen them for nearly thirty years. They went away before the bluefish returned, and before 

 any weir, trap, pound, or any other engine of wholesale destruction was set in the New England 

 waters. 



Storer, writing in 1846, remarked: "This fish is of late years found more rarely along our 

 coast than formerly. Captain Blanchard informs me that during some seasons but two or three 

 individuals are taken by the fishermen. Captain Atwood has seen but a single specimen during 

 the last four or five years. Many years ago it was abundant at Provincetown, and would run up 

 the small creeks and be left by the tide." 



J. V. C. Smith, in his "Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts," published in 1843, 

 remarked that " they abound at New York, but for some reason make their appearance north of 

 Cape Cod." 



From these testimonies it would appear that between 1840 and 1850 the species, formerly so 

 abundant, had disappeared along the whole coast line. In an essay by the writer, written in the 

 spring of 1879, this sentence occurs: "For ten years past the Smithsonian Institution, with its 

 collectors stationed at various points from Halifax to Galveston, has tried in vain to secure one of 

 them, aud it is probable that no museum in the world possesses a species of this fish, once so 

 common." 



In the summer of 1879, however, during the stay of the Fish Commission at Provincetown, a 

 considerable school of these fish came into the harbor and were taken in company with the Tinker 

 Mackerel. None were observed there in 1880, however, and it remains to be' seen whether they 

 have returned to be again counted among the permanent members of the fauna. This fish, during 

 the period of its abundance on our coast, was considered an excellent article of food, and was by 

 many preferred to the common Mackerel. On account of its small size, however, it was not so 

 much sought after by the fishermen. 



Concerning the Mackerel of the Pacific coast, which Professor Jordan considers to be iden- 

 tical with the Scomber pneumatophorus of the Eastern Atlantic, this authority writes: 



"The Tinker Mackerel, 8. pneumatophorus, is known as 'Mackerel,' 'Easter Mackerel,' 



