FISHES. 63 5 



purple and green, relieved by fine waving lines of deeper black, as 

 they appear on the market-stalls, or as they are emptied in the early 

 morning from the fishing-boa,t ? The head is blue above, with black 

 markings, the rest of the body being heightened with iridescent 

 shades of gold and purple. 



The mackerel is common to all European seas : being the Veirat 

 of the Bay of Languedoc ; the Aiirion of Provence ; the Bretal in 

 some parts of Brittany ; the Macarello of the modern Romans ; the 

 Scombro of the Venetians ; the Lacesto of the Neapolitans ; the 

 Cavallo of the Spaniards ; the well-known Mackerel of our own 

 shores, and the Makril of the Swedes ; it is found on the coast of 

 North America, and as far south as the Canary Islands. It is a 

 wandering, unsettled fish, supposed to be migratory, but individuals 

 are always found on our coast. They are supposed to remain during 

 the winter in the North Sea, and afterwards on the coast of Scotland 

 and Ireland in January and February, on their way to the Atlantic. 

 Here their great army is divided into two : one branch passes along 

 the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, while the other enters the 

 Channel. In May they appear on the coasts of England and France ; 

 in June they reach Holland ; in July one portion of them returns 

 to the Baltic, while another skirts the coast of Norway on its way to 

 winter quarters. 



Lacepede believed that this migration, which is so regular, and 

 its stages so rigorously indicated, was irreconcilable with a great 

 number of very precise observations ; and he arrived at the conclu- 

 sion that the mackerel passes the winter at the bottom of the sea, more 

 or less remote from the coast, which they again approach in the 

 spring. At the commencement of the fine season they advance 

 towards the shore which best agreed with them, showing themselves 

 often on the surface ; like the tunny, traversing the sea in courses 

 more or less direct or sinuous, but never following the periodical 

 circle which has been so ingeniously traced out for them. 



M. Milne-Edwards also remarks that, if these legions of fishes 

 ascend from the Polar seas, they ought to visit the Orkneys before 

 they appeared in the Channel, and enter the Mediterranean later in 

 the season ; but he is assured that they appear at the Orkneys late 

 in the season. It appears, also, that there are different varieties 

 which haunt the several neighbourhoods in which they abound. 



The largest mackerel are taken at the entrance of the Channel, 

 but they are considered less delicate than the smaller fishes. The 

 shoals of mackerel, it appears, never enter the Gulf of Gascony, but 

 they abound along the shores of Brittany up to the North Sea. It is 



