636 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



about the month of April that they begin to be met with, but they 

 are then still small and without milt or roe. In the months of June 

 and July the fish is in its most perfect state. Towards the end of 

 September and October mackerel of the same year's hatching are 

 taken ; finally, in November and December, the fishermen still fish 

 them, and send them to market, but this is an irregularity ; and the 

 fishermen of Lowestoft and Yamiouth take their great harvest in 

 ]\Iay and June ; in the Frith of Forth, and on the north coast of 

 Scotland, at a few weeks later. 



As mackerel are very voracious, they greedily devour all sorts of 

 bait, but they are chiefly taken by the drift-net. The drift-net is 

 twenty feet deep and 120 feet long, well buoyed at the upper edge, 

 but without weights at the bottom. The meshes, made of fine twine 

 tarred to a reddish colour for preservation, are calculated to admit 

 the head of the fish and catch it by the gill-covers so as to prevent 

 its withdrawal. A fleet of mackerel-boats dragging these large nets, 

 which are extended vertically in the sea, or float between the two 

 tides, is well represented in Plate XXX. 



The flesh of the mackerel is fat and high flavoured. Among the 

 ancients a liquid was extracted from this fat called garum, which was 

 considered a very nourishing preparation. The price of this liquid 

 was very high ; in modern measures it was valued at about sixteen 

 shillings the pint. It was acrid, half putrefied, and verj- nauseous, 

 but it had the property of rousing the appetite and stimulating the 

 digestive organs. Garum played the part of a condiment at a period 

 when the exciting array of Indian spices was unknown. Seneca 

 charges it, as we do pepper and other hot spices taken in excess, 

 with destroying the stomach and health of gourmands. This garum 

 is spoken of by the traveller Pierre Belon, wTiting in the sixteenth 

 century, as being held in great estimation at Constantinople in his 

 time. Rondelet, the author of a very remarkable book published in 

 1554, who ate garum at the table of William Pellicier, Bishop of 

 jMaguelonne, thought he could trace the liquid not to the mackerel, 

 but to one of the Sparoids {Sparus smaris). 



The mackerel possesses phosphorescent properties, which cause it 

 to shine in the dark, especially after death, when decomposition has 

 commenced. 



The mackerel is not only voracious, but, in spite of its small size, 

 it has the hardihood to attack fishes much larger and much stronger 

 than itself It is even said that they love human flesh. According 

 to the naturalist bishop, Pontoppidan, who lived in the sixteenth 

 century, a sailor belonging to a vessel which had cast anchor in one 



