SCOMBBKID^. 211 



particularly resembling it in a propensity to skip and 

 frisk on the surfacq.of the waves, like that active little 

 quadruped sporting by the brink of a fountain, or scud- 

 ding along a sunny wall to surprise a napping blue-bot- 

 tle. The word colias, which stands representative for 

 the same species both in Latin and Greek, is, or was in 

 Belon's day, a designation not yet entirely obsolete in 

 certain parts of Greece. Of modern names, though 

 scurmu is the prevailing mackerel cry in and about 

 Naples, lacert or lacerto is not unfamiliar to the ear of 

 such as buy their own fish in the markets of Nice, Le- 

 ghorn, or Genoa : with regard to macareUo, a word soft 

 enough to be reaUy Italian, and even afl&rmed by some 

 to be indigenous to Rome, we never heard it bawled once 

 within the classic precincts of the Portico of Octavia 

 (the Billingsgate of the Eternal City), and suspect, if 

 ever used, that it is only as a modern tramontane im- 

 portation, itahanized, like milordo, out of compliment 

 to English ears ; the word mackerel is one of very old 

 standing in our own vocabulary, and has most probably 

 a northern origin ; but whether this be so or not, both 

 the usually assigned Greek and Latin etymologies are 

 equally inadmissible ; the Greek, which, either from the . 

 excellence of the flesh, its own personal happiness, or that 

 which it confers on so many mackerel-eaters, would con- 

 jure mackerel from fiaKdpio<i, is obviously untrue, and 

 particularly wwhappy ; nor is mackerel ' quasi macularius,^ 

 i. e. the spotted, in lieu of what it is, a striped fish, a less 

 unfortunate attempt to fish out a meaning from the La- 

 tin. If we are to adopt any etymology where aU are 



word brimstone lie explains elsewhere, where he teUs us, that 

 hghtmng and thunderbolts both smell of sulphur and are of the 

 same hue; he most "probably, therefore, speaks of the light 

 emitted by this mineral during combustion, which may be called 

 a sort of mackerel blue. 



