FISHES. 635 
purple and green, relieved by fine waving lines of deeper black, as 
they appear on the market-stalls, or as they are emptied in the early 
morning from the fishing-boat? The head is blue above, with black 
markings, the rest of the body being heightened with iridescent 
shades of gold and purple. 
The mackerel is common to all European seas: being the Vezrat 
of the Bay of Languedoc ; the Aurion of Proyence; the Brefal in 
some parts of Brittany; the AZacare/lo of the modern Romans; the 
Scombro of the Venetians; the Zacesto of the Neapolitans; the 
Cavallo of the Spaniards; the well-known Mackerel of our own 
shores, and the Makril of the Swedes; it is found on the coast of 
North America, and as far south as the Canary Islands. It is a 
wandering, unsettled fish, supposed to be migratory, but individuals 
are always found on our coast. They are supposed to remain during 
the winter in the North Sea, and afterwards on the coast of Scotland 
and Ireland in January and February, on their way to the Atlantic. 
Here their great army is divided into two: one branch passes along 
the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, while the other enters the 
Channel. In May they appear on the coasts of England and France ; 
in June they reach Holland; in July one portion of them returns 
to the Baltic, while another skirts the coast of Norway on its way to 
winter quarters. 
Lacépéde believed that this migration, which is so regular, and 
its stages so rigorously indicated, was irreconcilable with a great 
number of very precise observations ; and he arrived at the conclu- 
sion that the mackerel passes the winter at the bottom of the sea, more 
or less remote from the coast, which they again approach in the 
spring. At the commencement of the fine season they advance 
towards the shore which best agreed with them, showing themselves 
often on the surface; like the tunny, traversing the sea in courses 
more or less direct or sinuous, but never following the periodical 
circle which has been so ingeniously traced out for them. 
M. Milne-Edwards also remarks that, if these legions of fishes 
ascend from the Polar seas, they ought to visit the Orkneys before 
they appeared in the Channel, and enter the Mediterranean later in 
the season; but he is assured that they appear at the Orkneys late 
in the season. It appears, also, that there are different varieties 
which haunt the several neighbourhoods in which they abound. 
The largest mackerel are taken at the entrance of the Channel, 
but they are considered less delicate than the smaller fishes. The 
shoals of mackerel, it appears, never enter the Gulf of Gascony, but 
they abound along the shores of Brittany up to the North Sea. It is 
