i 
THE MACKEREL AND ITS ALLIES. 173 
‘¢ | have many seasons been engaged in fishing for Mackerel in our bay 
with gill-nets. I watched the Mackerel more particularly in regard to 
their time for spawning. In 1856, owing to the fact that a measure had 
passed the Massachusetts legislature authorizing the appointment of three 
commissioners to make investigations with regard to the artificial propaga- 
tion of the fish, and that I expected to be named one of the commissioners, 
I went to the upper part of Massachusetts Bay, where it is about twenty 
miles broad, and I found these spawning Mackerel there near the bottom. 
This year the Mackerel came in about the middle of May; few at first. 
On the zcth I went out for the first time with my drifting-nets all night in 
the bay; I caught 2,250 Mackerel; on the following I caught 3,520. 
When I first began to catch them I observed that the spawn had come to 
its full size, though it was not free to run from them, not being yet fully 
matured. On or about the 1st of June we found that some of them were 
depositing spawn, and as I took them from the nets the spawn ran freely. - 
On the 5th of June I took the mature eggs as they came from the fish and 
put them in alcohol, marking the date, as I considered this time the 
middle of the spawning season. (By the roth of June the fish had all 
deposited their spawn, and they then proceeded tu the grounds where they 
expected to meet with better food in order to fatten and recruit. The 
spawning takes place at a depth of from five to fifteen fathoms.) Thirty 
days after I went out in the bay and found any quantity of schools of little 
Mackerel which were, I should think, about two inches long, though their 
length might have been a little less. I took a number of specimens and 
put them in alcohol, marking the date. Twenty-five days later I pro- 
cured another lot of them which had grown to double that size. J don’t 
mean to imply that they were twice as long, but twice as heavy. I put 
them also in alcohol, marking the date. The first time I subsequently 
went to Boston I called on Prof. Agassiz and gave him the specimens. 
Ee said that he had never before been able to ascertain these facts so 
clearly and so well, and that he was very much pleased with them. I 
watched the growth of these young Mackerel all along, and I saw them 
grow considerably from month to month, so much so that the same fall, 
in the latter part of October, I caught some of them with a very small 
mesh net and found they had grown to a length of six and a half or seven 
inches. I kept a small quantity of them, split, salted and packed them, 
in accordance with the Massachusetts inspection law, as No. 4’s, and since 
Mackerel were then scarce and very high in price, I sold them for as much 
as $6 a barrel.”’ 
“«Much yet remains to be learned in regard to the spawning season of 
the American Mackerel,’’ writes Prof. Baird, ‘‘ and little more is known 
of this except in regard to the European variety. It is, however, well 
established by the researches of Sars that this fish, like the cod, and many 
