The Albacore 207 
coast and rarely seen. In the Mediterranean 
Sea it is a familiar catch in nets. Germon is its 
French title, but the common name, albacore, was 
given it by the Portuguese, who undoubtedly took 
it from the Arabic a/, a; dacora, little pig. The 
specific name, a/alunga, by which it is known in 
Sardinia, means “long-winged.” Many authori- 
ties give the maximum weight of the albacore as 
twelve or fifteen pounds, which is far too low. 
I have measured an individual which weighed 
sixty-two and a half pounds, and have been in- 
formed by reliable fishermen that they have taken 
albacores in the deep San Clemente channel, ten 
miles west of Santa Catalina, which weighed one 
hundred pounds; but these large fishes rarely 
come inshore. The one first referred to was 
caught by an acquaintance, not fifty feet from the 
rocks, and for three hours it fought, towing the 
boat during that period an estimated five miles, 
often against the oars of the boatman, and mak- 
ing such strenuous resistance that it was consid- 
ered a tuna until the long sabrelike fins of the 
fish told the story. No tuna could have made a 
better struggle than this long-finned, big-eyed 
wanderer of the family Scoméride. 
On the Pacific coast the albacore spawns in 
