244 THE MACKEREL. 
the cuttle-fish, the calamary being its favorite prey. So voracious is this creature that it is 
readily caught by making a sham calamary out of lead and leather, dressing it with projecting 
hooks, and flinging it into the sea. The fishermen throw this bait to some distance, and then 
draw it rapidly through the water, when the Atun takes it for the real calamary darting along 
after its usual fashion, dashes at it and is immediately hooked. In default of this bait, a strip 
of red cloth stuck on a hook is often a sufficient lure for this voracious fish. 
The Mackerels, family Scombrid(B, include seventeen genera and about seventy species 
of highly brilliant and metallic-tinted fiishes, found in the high seas. Many of them are cos- 
mopolitan, and all have a wide range. 
The Common Mackerel ( Scomber scombrus ), the well-known food-fish, is abundant along 
the whole coast of North America, occasionally straying to the Pacific ocean. 
The notable Spanish Mackerel is a common article in our New York market. It is 
not frequently seen above that. 
The Bonito is another ally, of considerable repute as a food-fish,— occasional on our 
coast. 
SILVERY n A I R-T AIL.-- Trichiurus lepturus. 
The Tunnies of this family are wonderful for their size. The Common Tunny, or Horse 
Mackerel, is a notable creature, reaching the length of ten feet, and weighing a half ton. It 
makes its appearance in the summer months, sometimes being taken in the seines. Though 
large in the anterior half, its terminal portion has all the beauty of the shape of the Mackerel. 
The small of the body and the sharply-defined crescent tail render it a graceful fish. It is one 
of the well-known ancient fishes, being abundant in the Mediterranean Sea from the earliest 
time. A single specimen has yielded twenty gallons of oil. So much like the Mackerel is its 
flesh, it is captured for the market, and its flesh sold as third-rate mackerel. 
The Little Tunny, or Albicore, is an active, graceful fish, running in schools of a 
hundred or more. We have seen them leaping out of water, and gambolling around Egg 
Rock, at Nahant, Massachusetts. 
The Mackerel is well known for the exceeding beauty of its colors and the peculiar flavor 
of its flesh. This is one of the species that are forced by the irresistible impulse of instinct to 
migrate in vast shoals at certain times of the year, directing their course towards the shores, 
and as a general rule frequenting the same or neighboring localities from year to year. The 
time of their advent is rather variable, and in consequence the price of this fish varies with the 
scarcity or abundance. 
