E Storer on the 
In some years, immense shoals of these fishes are 
readily met with, and the vessels return in a few 
weeks with full cargoes; while the same localities 
may be visited at other seasons, and the efforts of 
the fisherman prove fruitless, and his fare meagre. 
So peculiar are the habits of this genus, that 
oftentimes weeks may pass, the fishing smacks be 
surrounded by millions sporting upon the surface of 
the ocean, and scarce one allow itself to be taken, 
while again, the success of a few days will retrieve 
the disappointments of nearly a season. 
Thus a fisherman informs me, that the last sea- 
son, (1837) having been at the bay of Chaleur, and 
taken but few fish, the vessel to which he belonged, 
was returning home, when, off Cape Cod, the fish 
were so numerous and voracious, that the crew, con- - 
sisting of ten men, captured, in two hours, nearly 
thirty barrels of them. At this time about two hun- 
dred smacks were together, and they were all equally 
successful, some of them taking even forty barrels of 
fish. 
After being carefully inspected, these fish find a 
ready market in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore 
and New Orleans, and from this last port they are 
sent over the entire western country. Those of in- 
ferior quality are shipped to the West India islands. 
I have not been able to learn with accuracy the 
number of vessels engaged exclusively in this fish- 
ery; in many towns, the same vessels are used at 
different seasons of the year for the cod as well as 
the mackerel fishery. -I have ascertained, however; 
that there were two hundred and two vessels em- 
