OSSEOUS FISHES. 
587 
The tunny is greatly celebrated among the Greeks and other 
inhabitants on the shores of the Mediterranean, of the Propontus, and 
the Black Sea. The Romans attached great value to certain parts of 
this fish, as the head and the lower part of the belly. The neigh- 
bouring parts were in little esteem with them. They cut them into 
pieces and preserved them in vases filled with salt. They are now 
preserved with oil and salt after being cooked ; this preparation is in 
great request at Cette, Montpellier, and Marseilles. With a pot of 
marine tunny, salted in tho vinegar of Lunel, a household is pretty 
well prepared for any event. 
The Mackerel ( Scomber scombrus) is too well known to require de- 
scription. Who has not admired these fishes, with their steel-blue 
Fig. 390. The Mackerel (Scomber scombrns), 
back, and changing iridescent sides of gold and purple and green, 
relieved by fine waving lines of deeper black, as they appear on the 
market-stalls, or as they are emptied in the early morning from the 
fishing-boat ? The head is blue above, with black markings, the rest 
of the body being raised with iridescent shades of gold and purple. 
There are two species of mackerel— that of the Atlantic and of the 
Channel, which has no swimming-bladder, Scomber scombrus (Fig. 390), 
and the mackerel of the Mediterranean, Scomber calms, which has 
the swimming-bladder, and which is a very rare fish in our seas. 
The mackerel is common to all European seas : being the Veirat of 
the Bay of Languedoc ; the Aurion of Provence ; the Bretal in some 
parts of Brittany ; the Macarello of the modern Romans ; the Scombro 
of the Venetians ; the Lacesto of the Neapolitans ; the CavaUo of the 
