310 IvTATUEAL HISTOEY OP AQUATIC ANIMALS, 



nets about Cherrystone, Virginia, is fully 500 fish; while as many as 4,000 have been taken at a 

 single 'lift,' and hauls of 2,500 are not uncommon during the height of the season. At Sandy 

 Hook the catch is quite large; in 1879, 3,500 pounds were taken at one haul in a pound-net at 

 Seabright, and the average stock for the pound-nets in that locality often exceeds $1,000 for 

 Mackerel alone, while the catch of other species is proportionately large. 



"We see no reason for believing that the present enormous catch will have any serious effect 

 upon the future abundance of the species; for, assuming that the fish are plenty all along the 

 coast, the catch, though extensive at certain points, must be insignificant in comparison with the 

 immense number of individuals in the water. As has been shown, however, there is good reason 

 .for believing that the numbers have varied from time to time in the past, and it may be that 

 natural causes, of which we are still ignorant, and over which we may have no control, may cause 

 a like variation in the future." 



In 1879 the writer, in preparing an essay upon this fish, remarked : " Mitchill, when he described 

 the Scomber maculalMS, sixty -five years ago, summed up what he knew of its habits in a single sen- 

 tence : ' Comes in July,' and the studies of later naturalists have added but little to this terse story." 

 Since that time the studies of Mr. Earll and Mr. Stearns have added so much to our knowledge 

 •of the life and history of this fish that it may be said that its habits are now about as well under- 

 stood as those of any other species on our coast. Instead of weaving the facts which have lately 

 been recorded into a compact narrative, the statements of different observers will be ^iven as 

 nearly as possible in their own words. 



Mr. Earll thus discusses its movements along the Southern Atlantic coast: 

 "Spanish Mackerel are gregarious in their habits. They are sometimes seen in enormous 

 schools, covering several square miles of ocean surface. A single school seen off" Long Island a 

 few years ago was estimated to contain several million individuals. The density of these schools, 

 thowever, is very different from that of the schools of menhaden on which they feed. The latter 

 are usually found in compact masses, often many feet in thickness; while the former are consider- 

 .ably scattered, a large percentage of them being at or near the surface of the water. 



" The fish make annual excursions to the coast of the United States in summer; starting from 

 their home in the warmer waters of the South, or, perhaps, from the deeper waters along the inner 

 edge of the Gulf Stream, in the early spring, and proceeding northward, or landward, as the season 

 advances. After remaining for a few weeks, or months at most, they again move southward, or 

 seaward, and at the approach of cold weather entirely disappear. They seem to prefer water 

 ranging from 70° to 80° Fahrenheit, and seldom enter that which is colder than 65°. 



"Off Charleston, South Carolina, the fish are first seen about the last of March, and late in 

 April they enter the sounds of the North Carolina coast. By the 20th of May the vanguard 

 reaches the Chesapeake, and others follow in rapid succession, so that by the middle of June the 

 capture of Mackerel constitutes the principal occupation of the fishermen. Off Sandy Hook the 

 first individuals are not seen till late in July,' and from that time they continually increase in 

 numbers till the middle, or even the last, of August. Their time of arrival at Narragansett Bay 

 is about the same as that for Sandy Hook. In this northern region they remain tiU the middle of 



'The Canadian fishery report for 1880 contains the following notice of the capture of a Spanish Mackerel at 

 Prince Edward's Island, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which (if there is no mistake in the identification) extends 

 by several hundred miles the range of the species. The report says: "An undoubted specimen of the Spanish 

 Mackerel, male, Cybium niaculatum of the United States, was caught hy hook at New London, Queen's County, on 

 the 7th of September, It is rare to find this fish in so high a latitude." — Supplement No. 2 to the Eleventh Annual 

 Report of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries for the year 1880, p. 229. 



With all deference to the author of this report, I am unwilling without further evidence to accept this identifica- 

 tion as accurate. — G. B. G. 



