588 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
Spaniards ; the well-known Mackerel of onr own shores, and the 
Malcril of the Swedes ; it is found on the coast of North America, 
and as far south as the Canary Islands. It is a wandering, unsettled 
fish, supposed to be migratory, hut individuals are always found on 
our coast. They are supposed to remain during the winter in the 
North Sea, and afterwards on the coast of Scotland and Ireland in 
January and February, on their way to the Atlantic. There their 
great army is divided into two : one branch passes along the Spanish 
and Portuguese coasts, while the other enters the Channel. In May 
they appear on the coasts of England and France. In June they 
reach Holland. In July one portion of them returns to the Baltic, 
while another skirts the coast of Norway on its way to winter quarters. 
Lacepede estimated that this migration, which is so regular, and its 
stages so rigorously indicated, was irreconcilable with a great number 
of very precise observations ; and he arrived at the conclusion that the 
mackerel passes the winter at the bottom of the sea, more or less 
remote from the coast, which they again approach in the spring. 
At the commencement of the fine season they advance towards the 
shore which best agreed with them, showing themselves often on the 
surface, like the tunny, traversing the sea in courses more or less direct 
or sinuous, but never following the periodical circle which has been so 
ingeniously traced out for them. 
Mr. Milne Edwards also remarks that, if these legions of fishes 
ascended from the Polar seas, they ought to visit the Orkneys before 
they appeared in the Channel, and enter the Mediterranean later in the 
season ; but he is assured that they appear at the Orkneys late in the 
season. It appears, in short, that there are different varieties which 
haunt the several neighbourhoods in which they abound. 
The largest mackerel are taken at the entrance of the Channel, 
but they are considered less delicate than the smaller fishes. The 
shoals of mackerel, it appears, never enter the Gulf of Gascony, but 
they abound along the shores of Brittany up to the North Sea. It is 
about the month of April that they begin to be met with, but they are 
still small and without milt or roe. In the months of June and July 
the fish is in its most perfect state. Towards the end of September and 
October mackerel of the same year’s birth are taken; finally, in 
November and December, the fishermen still fish them, and send 
them to market, but this is an irregularity, and the fishermen of 
