Tue Estuary SEentINe.. 135 
mackerel kindred; an individual specimen a yard in length 
weighs from six to eight pounds only. The cero is of a lead- 
en color on the back and sides; belly and belly-fins white ; 
back and sides sprinkled thickly with black dots nearly the 
size of peas. The first dorsal is spinous, as are also the first 
rays of the pectorals and second dorsal; all the others are 
rigid, but not spinous. The frame of the tail is spinous, but 
the tail is translucent; it has an adipose fin each side on the 
lateral line at the tail. Its jaws are armed with serrulated 
teeth which laugh at any cords softer than copper wire. I 
believe that none have yet been taken with rod and reel, 
though they are said to be very ravenous biters and ambi- 
tious vaulters, which can leap much higher than a salmon. 
They are taken in increased numbers annually by persons 
while trolling with common Britannia metal squids for blue- 
fish. This fish has no apparent scales. 
THE HORSE MACKEREL. 
posed to be a“ thynnus,” as 
some members of its family 
weigh nearly a ton; but I 
may be in error, and the fish 
may be the head of the 
mackerel tribes, whose fam- 
ily commands the coast from 
Nantucket to the Straits of 
Belle Isle. At Quebec and 
Gaspe it is called “Bluefish.” 
The name may have been de- 
rived from its leaden color, 
and having a head like the New York bluefish, though its 
body discloses a few mackerel marks, and its tail is like that 
of the bonito. While in Gaspe I sketched the head and tail 
of a horse mackerel which had just been harpooned in the 
Bay of Gaspe by Thomas Morland, Esq. The fish weighed 
