ORDER I. BONY FISHES. ACANTHOPTERYGII (SPINY-FINS). L51 
fish, a slight jerk of the arm being sufficient for the purpose, and which 
lodges the Mackerel securely in the barrel with his brother-victims. When 
the biting is “lively,” the work is more like sport than toil, as the excite- 
ment takes away from the fisherman all sense of fatigue, and he stands by 
his lines, drawing them in, one after another, with the greatest rapidity, and 
without intermission, hour after hour. 
A bait of ground fish is thrown out to ¢o/e the school up to the vessel ; 
but the Mackerel is a very capricious animal, sometimes rushing at the 
hooks, baited or unbaited, with perfect madness, for hours, and at others 
refusing to bite for days together. We haye been among schools of Mack- 
erel for two or three days, when their incalculable numbers actually darkened 
the water, and yet not a single individual would be tempted to touch the hook. 
The business of Mackerel-catching in this country commences in the 
spring, off the coasts of Florida. As the summer advances, the shoals 
migrate to the north, and later in the season the whole coast is alive with 
them from Newfoundland to the capes of Delaware, when the waters of the 
Atlantic, along the American shores, studded with countless numbers of 
fishing-vessels, present a very animated spectacle. 
This fishing appears to be prosecuted with equal zeal on the other side of 
the ocean, especially on the coasts of Great Britain. In an interesting work, 
entitled Wild Sports of the West, we find the following lively picture of 
Mackerel-catching off the Irish shores : — 
“It was evident that the bay was full of Mackerel. In every direction, 
and as far as the eye could range, gulls and puffins were collected, and, to 
judge by their activity and clamor, there appeared ample employment for 
them among the fry beneath. We immediately bore away for the place 
where these birds were numerously congregated, and the lines were scarcely 
overboard, when we found ourselves in the centre of a shoal of Mackerel. 
For two hours we killed these beautiful fish, as fast as the baits could be 
renewed and the lines hauled in; and when we left off fishing, actually 
wearied with sport, we found that we had taken above five hundred, includ- 
ing a number of the coarser species, called Ilorse-mackerel. There is not, 
on sea or river, always excepting angling for salmon, any sport comparable 
to this delightful amusement: full of life and bustle, everything about it is 
animated and exhilarating; a brisk breeze and fair sky, the boat in quick 
and constant motion, all is calculated to interest and excite. He who has 
experienced the glorious sensations of sailing on the Western Ocean, a 
bright autumnal sky above, a deep-green, lucid swell around, a steady 
breeze, and as much of it as the hooker can stand up to, will estimate the 
exquisite enjoyment our morning’s Mackerel-fishing afforded.” 
Nearly all of the Scomberidw family visit the shores in summer for the 
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