PILOT-FISH. 
3 6 5 
is edible. The genus is represented in the Monte Bolca Eocene. Horse-mackerel 
sometimes make their appearance in enormous shoals on the British coasts; and it 
is stated that on one occasion upwards of ten thousand were taken in Cornwall. 
A correspondent of Yarrell wrote, that in the summer of 1834 vast shoals of these 
fish were seen on the Glamorganshire coast. “ They were first observed in the 
evening, and the whole sea, as far as we could command it with the eye, seemed in 
a state of fermentation with their numbers. Those who stood on some projecting 
rock had only to dip their hands into the water, and with a sudden jerk they 
might throw up three or four. The bathers felt them come against their bodies, 
and the sea, looked on from above, appeared one dark mass of fish. Every net was 
immediately put in requisition ; and those which did not give way from the weight, 
were drawn on shore laden with spoil. One of the party who had a herring-seine 
with a two-inch mesh was the most successful; every mesh held its fish, and 
formed a wall that swept on the beach all before it. The quantity is very inade- 
PILOT-FISH. 
quately expressed by numbers, they were caught by cart-loads. As these shoals 
were passing us for a week, with their heads directed up channel, we had the 
opportunity of noticing that the feeding-time was morning and evening. They were 
pursuing the fry of the herring, and I found their stomachs constantly full of them.” 
Another genus is represented by the pelagic pilot-fish (Naucrates 
Pilot-Fish. c i uc f or ^ w hich takes its name from a supposed habit of guiding and 
protecting the sharks and ships which it accompanies. Having no plates on the 
lateral line, this fish is further characterised by the rounded under surface of the 
body, by the first dorsal fin being composed in the adult of detached spines, by the 
absence of finlets, and the presence of a keel on each side of the tail. W hen adult, 
the pilot-fish measures about a foot in length. In colour it is bluish, with five or six 
dark vertical bands; the tail-fin sometimes having the ends of its two lobes dark, 
as also a band across the middle third. Ranging over all temperate and tropical 
seas, pilot-fish were regarded as sacred by the ancients, by whom they were known 
as pompili ; the common belief being that when the ship neared land, the fish 
suddenly disappeared, and thus gave warning to the sailors of impending danger. 
Many legends have grown in later times as to how pilot-fish will prevent sharks 
