424 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



(Dunn). At present it is locally plentiful on the trawling- 

 grounds off the south coast and in the west. It is frequently- 

 taken in Crab-pots, especially when set with Spider Grab. The 

 Trumpet Fish (Centriscus scolopax, L.) is an extremely rare 

 accidental vagrant from the Mediterranean. An undoubted 

 British example was thrown on shore at Menabilly, near Fowey, 

 in 1804. On the 16th of June, 1906, one of the writer's biology 

 students found a dead specimen in good condition on some wet 

 mud near the mouth of the Helford River, where it had evidently 

 just been left by the receding tide. When the writer received 

 it wrapped up in paper two days later the odour of decom- 

 position was barely perceptible, so that presumably it must have 

 died only a short time before it was discovered. The specimen, 

 which is 6*3 in. long, has been placed in the museum of the Eoyal 

 Institution of Cornwall. 



Immense quantities of Mackerel {Scomber scombrus, L.) appear 

 off the coast in spring and early summer, and are caught with 

 drift-nets till the schools break up about the end of May or early 

 in June, when they come more inshore, and are taken freely with 

 the seine and the hand-line. The Cornish boats may in some 

 years begin to fish with satisfactory results very early in January, 

 but the regular fishing season is from March to June. At that 

 period several hundred boats make their headquarters at Newlyn, 

 and others at Looe, Mevagissey, Falmouth, and St. Ives. During 

 March and April, the recognized time of the spring Mackerel 

 fishery in Cornwall, the Looe boats fish for the most part five to 

 twenty miles south-west to west of the Eddystone ; the Mevagissey 

 boats off the Dodman and Falmouth Bay ; those from Newlyn and 

 the neighbourhood off the Lizard to Wolf Rock and in Mount's 

 Bay, and those from St. Ives ten to sixty miles off that port. In 

 May and June, the time of the summer Mackerel fishery, the 

 Looe fishermen go to great distances south-west of the Eddy- 

 stone, the Mevagissey men usually fish forty to sixty miles south- 

 west of the Dodman, the Mount's Bay men from south-west of 

 Mount's Bay to within sight of Ushant Light, and from there to 

 Cape Clear in the south-west of Ireland. They also at times 

 make big catches outside the Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly. The 

 St. Ives men go sixty or seventy and in some years (e. g. 1905) 

 ninety miles, N.N.W. round to N.N.E., and in some seasons fish 



