224 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



were collected, and, to judge by their activity and clamour, there 

 appeared ample employment for them among the fry beneath. 

 We immediately bore away for the place where these birds were 

 numerously congregated, and the lines were scarcely overboard 

 when we found ourselves in the centre of a shoal of mackerel. 

 For two hours we killed these beautiful fish, as fast as the baits 

 could be renewed and the lines hauled in ; and when we left off 

 fishing, actually wearied with sport, we found that we had taken 

 above five hundred, including a number of the coarser species, 

 called Horse-mackerel. There is not, on sea or river, always 

 excepting angling for salmon, any sport comparable to this de- 

 lightful amusement : full of life and bustle, everything about it 

 is animated and exhilarating ; a brisk breeze and fair sky, the 

 boat in quick and constant motion, all is calculated to interest 

 and excite. He who has experienced the glorious sensations of 

 sailing on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above, a 

 deep-green lucid swell around, a steady breeze, and as much of 

 it as the hooker can stand up to, will estimate the exquisite 

 enjoyment our morning's mackerel-fishing afforded." 



Although an occasional visitor of our shores, the Bonito, or 

 Stripe-bellied Tunny (Thynnus pelamys), which is much in- 

 ferior in size to the common tunny of the Mediterranean and 

 the Black Sea, is a true ocean-fish, and generally met with at 

 a vast distance from land. It inhabits the warmer seas, of 

 which it is one of the most active and voracious denizens. It 

 is well known to all voyagers within the tropics for the amuse- 

 ment it affords by its accompanying the vessel in its track, and 

 by its pursuit of the flying-fish. But in its turn the predacious 

 Bonito is subject to the persecutions of the huge Sperm whale, 

 who will often drive whole shoals before him, and crush dozens 

 at a time between his prodigious jaws. 



The Pelamid (Thynnus sarda), which abounds in all districts 

 of the Mediterranean and on both sides of the Atlantic, has but 

 very lately been discovered in the British waters, a single spe- 

 cimen having been caught a few years ago at the mouth of the 

 North Esk. It greatly resembles the species just mentioned in 

 form and mode of life, prowling about the high seas for cepha- 

 lopods and flying-fishes, and is very commonly confounded with 

 the bonito by sailors, who also give both of them the name of 

 Skip-jacks, expressiye of the habit which many of the large 



