THE MACKEREL FISHERY 261 



mackerel increases this need of extreme care in preparation 

 for catching them. Mackerel have certain well-defined 

 habits of appearance. For example, they first make their 

 appearance off the coast of the Hatteras region the last 

 of March or the first of April. The body of fish advances 

 northward as far as Block Island, reaching that place about 

 the first week in June. At about the same time another 

 body of fish appears on the coast of Nova Scotia, advances 

 along shore, follows up the Cape Breton shore to disappear 

 finally in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence before the first of 

 July. 



In the meantime, the Block Island body of mackerel may 

 have moved eastward to George's Bank, or turned north 

 to appear along the New England coast ; or they may dis- 

 appear without leave or notice for the remainder of the 

 summer. Similar conditions may exist with the body of 

 fish that entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. With the 

 coming of the fall months the mackerel feels the instinct 

 of migration as does the summer song bird. Immense 

 schools of the fish may appear in almost any part of the 

 Gulf of Maine or of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, prepara- 

 tory to their annual fall migration. When the one school 

 leaves Nantucket behind and the other disappears south of 

 Scatari and Cape Sable the mackerel vanish for the win- 

 ter, for their haunts during the colder months of the year 

 are still unknown to the fishermen. 



With the opening of another spring they will return to 

 the surface of the ocean near their usual haunts to repeat 

 the great movement that their ancestors have followed for 

 ages. This much the fisherman can depend upon, generally. 

 But there are a thousand and one other tricks of the fish 

 that are beyond knowing. They may appear in small, de- 

 tached schools which, if caught, will repay the fisherman 

 with a few barrels only. Or they may be in an immense 

 school too large for a twelve-hundred-foot seine to encom- 



