SCOMBEEIDiE. 197 



indeed considered by the fishermen as their best : as this 

 is about double the time that the ancient fishing was con- 

 tinued, it would seem that these thunny (unlike the Re- 

 chabite swallows, ever punctual, almost to a day, in their 

 migration southward, fi-om the earliest times) have ma- 

 terially changed the institutions of their ancestors, and 

 devote half the year at present to the Mediterranean, 

 where formerly they only spent three months. But who, 

 if we except Neptune and the Nereids, knows where the 

 other months are passed? With reference to another 

 fish of this family, the mackerel, Mr. YarreU very sensibly 

 observes, that it may be fairly doubted whether they are 

 not much nearer to us at all seasons than is generally 

 supposed; coming (as char do, from the inaccessible depths 

 of their lakes) towards the shore, in order to spawn, and 

 when that purpose is accomplished, leaving the shoal 

 water, and retreating again to the abyss. The reason 

 why thunny, as well as other fish, come to the coast in 

 spring, is, says Pliny, ' for that they are more iu saftie 

 under the winde, where the water is not so rough, and 

 fuUe of waves ; and also to bringe forthe their Uttel ones 

 where there be no great fishes to devoure them up.' Nor 

 is their disappearance afterwards from the coast any evi- 

 dence of a distant voyage, since they may be, as Aristotle 

 has remarked of some other fish, merely ' en retraite.' 



Modern Thunny Fishery. 



The catching of thunny, nowadays, is mostly efiected 

 by nets ; two of the most approved modifications of which 

 are those popularly known in Provence as the 'tonnaire' 

 and the ' madrague.' Of the latter, Duhamel truly says, 

 no other combination of meshes can convey such an idea 

 of human ingenuity and inventiveness in the retiary art 

 as this. So vast a quantity of fish does it sometimes se- 

 cure, that there is preserved in the archives of the active 

 little fishing bourg of CouiUoure, the registration of one 



