STRIPE-BACKED PELAMIS. 
107 
salted, or preserved in oil. It seems to spawn off the 
English coast, too, for Day states that fry 6 inches in 
length have been taken there. It is usually confounded 
with the Mackerel, however, and regarded only as a 
large specimen of that species. In Scandinavia only 
comparatively large specimens have been taken, and 
these but seldom. Only four such finds are known. 
The first, described by Malm, was caught on a Mac- 
kerel-line off Srnogen (Bohusl&n) on the 18th of July, 
1863: two others were taken off’ Stromstad, in De- 
cember, 1877, and January, 1878, during the Herring- 
fishery which had just begun, and are now preserved 
in the Royal Museum. The fourth was taken in a net 
near Christiania on the 15th of June, 1878. The spe- 
cies can thus be regarded only as an occasional visitor 
to the Scandinavian Fauna; but it is spread over the 
greater part of the Atlantic from the Cape of Good 
Hope to the North Sea and westward to the coast of 
Massachusetts. While Day states that it has been ob- 
served that this species has latterly become rarer on 
the English coast, the case is said to be the opposite 
on the coast of America. It has sometimes been caught 
in enormous quantities, between Block Island and New 
York for example: the catch off Block Island alone in 
1877 is said to have weighed at least 2 million lbs. 
At one haul of a purse-seine 1,500 specimens were 
taken". In spite of this proof of its gregarious habits 
there, it seems that the Pelamis, as a rule at least, 
does not spawn on the coast of the Northern States, 
as only solitary young specimens have been found. As 
an article of food, the Pelamis ranks among the best 
of fishes in North America too, but the large quantity 
of blood it possesses and the high temperature of its 
body render it necessary to slaughter it soon after its 
capture, in order to prevent decomposition. In the 
Southern States instances are given of illnesses (diar- 
rhoea, vomiting and skin-eruptions) due to the eating 
of the flesh of the Pelamis or of other closely related 
species. 
Genus AUXIS. 
Body fusiform , fairly high in adult specimens. The scales of the body form a distinct corslet in the preab- 
dominal region, but behind this the body is naked ( without scales). Dorsal fins far apart , the first triangular , the 
second of the same form as the anal, but, either altogether or for the greater part at least situated in front of the 
latter. Finlets behind the dorscd and anal fins from 7 to 9. Pectoral fins set midway between the bach and the 
belly. Eyes of average size: the adipose lid, as a rule , rudimentary. The preorbited, bone covers at least a great 
part even of the back of the upper jaw-bone, when the mouth is closed. Jaw teeth small, set in a single row. 
Palatine bones and vomer without teeth. On each side of the end of the tail a middle carina and two shorter , 
lateral carince: behind the latter two weaker ones 1 which extend to the hind, margin of the caudal fin. Pyloric 
appendages united into a glandulous mass , or (in youth?) free but repeatedly branched. 
Of this genus, a remarkable intermediate form species, which was first described by Commerson as 
with some Thynnoicl and some Scombroid (s. str.) cha- belonging to the neighbourhood of New Guinea, 
racters highly developed, we probably know only one 
See Brown-GtOODe, Fish. Indust, r., pt. 1, p. 318. 
