Nature and Art, June 1, 18C(i.] 
THE MACKEREL. 
9 
THE MACKEREL. 
(Fam. Scomberidce.) 
By W. B. Lord, Royal Artillery. 
I T would be difficult to find a fish, more exquisite in form 
and colour, or more important in a commercial point of 
view, than our blue-and-silver friend who is popularly sup- 
posed to have arrived at the height of perfection as an 
article of food in the month of June. By some very precise 
folk, in days gone by, his admission to polite society was 
considered out of the question until green gooseberries made 
their appearance. 
The frequenters of Billingsgate have souls above such 
antique prejudices. Let us then consider the fish from an 
entirely modern, prosaic, and practical point of view. 
Mackerel, to be fully appreciated, should be eaten per- 
fectly fresh. The sooner they are cooked after having, with 
stiff protruding fins, quick shuddering flutter, and changing 
ultramarine tints, gasped their short lives away, the better. 
The cause of the poisonous qualities which mackerel, as 
well as many other kinds of fish, especially those found in 
tropical regions, at times possess (whether in a fresh or stale 
condition), is a question opening up a field for investigation 
to those who have the will and leisure to enter upon it ; 
and such of the readers of Nature and Art as have already 
directed their attention to the matter would confer a favour 
by communicating the result of their researches. 
There are many points connected with the movements of 
the mackerel, its value, and mode of capture, which may 
not prove uninteresting. Certain localities are visited by 
the shoals only at particular periods of the year, whilst 
others are never deserted by them. Whether from the 
abundance of suitable food found at such times, or from 
some of the other causes which influence the migrations of 
fish, it is hard to say ; but experience shows us that on 
the coasts of Ireland mackerel are taken nearly all the 
year round. They are rarely very abundant on the coast of 
Cornwall — although never entirely absent from it — much 
before March. A little later they visit the coast of Devon- 
shire, appearing to approach the land as the season advances. 
At Lowestoft and Yarmouth the fishing season is still later, 
and is at its height during the months of May and June, 
whilst, in the Frith of Forth, June and July are the months 
when they usually appear. In the Orkneys few fish are taken 
until the last week in Jidy or the first in August. 
The mackerel family have an extended range, and are found 
most abundant in warmer climes than ours. The Sea of Mar- 
mora and the Bosphorus at times literally swarm with them, 
and it is extremely picturesque and exciting to see the light 
and graceful “ caiques ” dancing like bubbles over the clear 
blue sea, as, propelled by their lusty crews, they shoot here 
and there amongst the circling nets. Meantime, the cunning 
old cormorants, undismayed by the bustle and splashing 
water, ply their occupation most diligently. As they grow 
audacious from long-continued impunity; they make a 
sudden raid over the corks into the thick of the struggling, 
fluttering fry. The fishermen shout, and by dint of admoni- 
tory pokes, liberally administered with the oar blades, the 
greedy, long-necked throng are ignominiously expelled, and 
retire beyond the nets, gobbling down at leisure their ill- 
gotten plunder. Some idea of the abundance of fish to be 
found in this part of the world, and of the immunity from 
persecution enjoyed by these birds, may be formed by 
watching the countless thousands of them which at times 
pass, in apparently endless lines, between the Sea of 
Marmora and the Black Sea. I have watched them for 
hours without seeing any apparent diminution in their 
passing hosts. Vast numbers of mackerel also frequent 
the coasts of the island of St. Helena, where immense 
quantities can bo captured. I have taken them with the 
hook and line, until literally tired of hauling up and unhook- 
ing ; baiting with a little strip of salt pork-rind, and 
throwing biscuit-dust overboard as an attraction. These 
fish, although of excellent flavour, are rarely more than 
seven or eight inches long, and are much like the sinners, 
or young mackerel, found abundantly on our coasts during the 
summer months ; whilst in British waters, from fourteen to 
sixteen inches in length, and two pounds in weight, is not 
an unusual size. There are instances on record of mackerel 
measuring over twenty inches long', and heavy in propor- 
tion ; but these are rare. There is a fish known amongst 
fishermen as the Spanish mackerel ( Scomber colias). It is 
occasionally taken of considerable size ; but is easily dis- 
tinguished from the true mackerel, and is in little repute as 
an article of food, being dry and of indifferent flavour. 
It is both curious and interesting to trace, from old 
records, how fluctuating and uncertain the visits of the 
migratory shoals have been, and how — like the rich claim 
of the gold-digger — the sea at times pours forth, most 
lavishly, the glittering treasures that have been long and 
laboriously sought in vain. Thus we are told that, in the 
month of May, 1807, the crew of a fishing-boat from 
Brighton put out to sea, fell in with the fish, went to work 
with a will, caught a boat-load, and sold them in Billings- 
gate for forty guineas per hundred : just seven shillings per 
fish, counting six score to the hundred. 
In the month of June, in the same year, the fish appear 
to have made heavy reprisals. For the shoals were so 
great that a Brighton boat had all her nets, to the value 
of £60, sunk and lost by the weight of fish entangled 
in the meshes. Again, we areinfoi’med that, on the 30th of 
June, 1821, sixteen boats’ crews of Lowestoft realized 
between them, for their catch of mackerel, .£5,252 ; and the 
fishermen on the Suffolk coast earned, in that year, not less 
than £14,000. It is also recorded that on a Sunday, in the 
month of March, 1833, four Hastings boats captured, and 
safely landed, 10,800 fish ; and on the next day, two boats 
secured 7,000. Again, early in February, 1834, one boat’s 
crew from Hastings cleared £100 by one night’s fishing; and 
in six days, from the 19th to the 24th of June inclusive, 
131,700 mackerel were sent to the London market. In 
1808, on the Kentish coast, sixty fish were sold for a shilling. 
Much importance appears in past times to have been 
attached to the sale of mackerel in London, as we find that 
a law was passed, in the year 1698, legalizing their being 
vended by a “ cry” on a Sunday : which custom, as we know, 
still continues. 
There are several modes by which the capture of the 
mackerel is effected. Seines, or long nets furnished with 
corks at the top, and leads at the bottom, are dexterously 
carried, by fast boats, round the advancing shoal of fish, 
which is enclosed as within a “ pound.” The ends of the 
net are now secured, and the fish either taken from within 
the enclosure with a smaller net, or drawn to the surface in 
the “bunts,” or bags formed in the larger seines, when the 
leaping, struggling fish are dipped up literally by flasket- 
fuls (by men stationed on the gunwale of the boat for the 
purpose) and thrown into a compartment provided for their 
reception. Great numbers are at times taken in ground 
seines, or nets, which, although somewhat like those above 
described, are smaller, and so arranged as to be dragged to 
the beach with their contents. “ Trammel ” and “ drift ” nets 
may be compared to curtains suspended in mid-water, and 
are moored securely in the places selected for them by 
heavy stones fastened to their ends. In them the heedless 
fish, not perceiving the treacherous web, dart their heads, 
become hopelessly entangled, and are ultimately strangled 
in the meshes. 
Hook-fishing, too, lends its aid in thinning the rainbow 
throng. As a matter of sport and pastime, few pursuits, 
I think, are more thoroughly enjoyable than “whiffing” 
for mackerel, and the following quotation will show that 
others are much of the same way of thinking : — 
“ It was evident the bay was full of mackerel ; in every 
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