237 



but it is yearly becoming more and more numerous. 

 Even now there are days in summer when the Long 

 Island coast literally swarms with Spanish mackerel. 

 They have been observed in solid schools twenty miles 

 wide and of unknown length. These immense masses 

 must evidently have come on from the south, but it has 

 taken them years to get here. They have moved gradu- 

 ally and it is to be hoped they will be equally slow in 

 leaving, and that they may supplant the blue-fish to which 

 they bear a family resemblance. They are, as a table 

 delicacy, the finest fish which is to be found in our country, 

 and will add much to the attractions of our fish food if 

 they remain with us. 



This same unwillingness to change locality is still 

 more observable among fresh water fish. The trout 

 fiiiher has often observed a trout of unusual size 

 occupying a certain spot in the stream, and expected 

 always to find him until he was captured, or driven 

 away. Salmon Trout and Pickerel fishing through 

 the ice, in winter, demonstrates this love of locality in a 

 still more marked degree. It is found that after fishing 

 for a few days at one place, the fisherman can take no 

 more, and he must move and cut new holes for his li<ies. 

 Though it be only a change of a few hundred yards, the 

 fishing will be renewed and as good as ever. Now, if 

 trout were in the habit of roaming about they would have 

 no local habitation, but be taken in one part of the stream 

 one day, and in another the next. So with Salmon 

 Trout and pickerel, did they keep continually moving 

 there would be no use in a fisherman changing his lines; 

 he would only have to wait in one spot till the fish came 

 round. 



It is this peculiarity which rules in most if not all our 

 fish which makes pound-netting so terribly destructive. 



