80 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



[36.] 1. Scomber grex et vernalis. (Mitchill.) Chub and Spring 



Mackerel. 



Family, Scomberoideae. Genus, Scomber. Cuvier. 



Thimble-eyed, Bull-eyed, or Chub Mackerel (Scomber grex), Mitchill, New York Tr., i.,p. 422. 



Spring Mickerel (Scomber verna/is). Idem, p. 423. 



Le petit Maquereau de l'Atlantique (S. grex). Cuv. et Val., viii., p. 45. 



Le Maquereau printannier ( S. vernalis). Idem, p. 48. 



The well-known Scomber scombrus, or Common Mackerel, is the type of the 

 first tribe of Scomberoidese, which is characterized by spurious finlets situated 

 behind a continuous dorsal, a fusiform body, a compact, very taper, keeled but 

 unarmed tail, and a large and powerful caudal fin. The tribe comprises the best- 

 known fish of the family, and those which are most useful to man, viz., the 

 Scombri, Tliynni, and Orcyni, that traverse the seas in immense shoals, and form 

 the object of vast and expensive fisheries. The Common Mackerel ranges on the 

 European side of the Atlantic, from Iceland to the Canaries, and penetrates into 

 the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black seas, but not into the sea of Azof. It wants 

 the air-bladder, but there are two Mediterranean species, S. pneumatophorus and 

 colias, which possess that viscus, although they are extremely similar to the scom- 

 brus in external form. Two American mackerel, named $. grex and vernalis by 

 Dr. Mitchill, also provided with an air-bladder, have precisely the exterior form 

 and number of parts* of pneumatophorus, and even their skeletons exhibit no 

 sensible variations, though there are some differences in the viscera, the stomach 

 of the American fish being shorter, and the length and number of the pyloric 

 cseca greater. The only differences between S. grex and vernalis seem to be 

 in their size and colour, and they are very probably different ages of the same 

 species. S.grex frequents the whole of the Atlantic coast of the United States, 

 the Bermudas, the West Indies, the coast of Brazil, and the Cape of Good Hope. 

 It is highly probable that it also ranges to British North America, for mackerel 

 exist on the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and La Hontan enumerates 

 " maquereaux comme en Europe" among the fish taken in the estuary of the St. 

 Lawrence. I have not been able to discover if there be mackerel on the Labrador 

 coast, and have never heard of any having been seen in Hudson's Bay. 



* In Pneumatophorus, Fins.— Br. 7 ; D. 10/ 1/1 1—5 finlets ; A. 1/11— 5 finlets; C. 17; P. 19; V. 1/5. 



