THE MA CKEREL AND ITS ALLIES. 
171 
Large Mackerel often eat smaller ones. Capt. Collins has frequently 
found young Mackerel three or four inches long in the stomachs of those 
full grown. This is generally noticeable only in the fall, and the young 
fish are probably those which have been hatched in the spring. 
In the fall of 1874 the writer made a trip upon a gill-net schooner to 
the grounds off Portland, Me., some distance to sea, for the purpose of 
studying the food of the Mackerel, and found their stomachs full of a 
species of Thysanopoda and of a large copepod crustacean. The greater 
part of the food of Mackerel consists, however, of minute crustaceans. 
Owing to the infinite abundance of these in the sea, Mackerel probably 
have very little difficulty in finding food at almost any portion of the 
ocean visited by them, whether on the edge of the Gulf Stream or near 
the shore. 
In an interview with Capt. King Harding, of Swampscott, one of the 
most experienced mackerel catchers on our coast, I obtained the follow¬ 
ing amusing observations : “ He described one kind of crustacean Mack¬ 
erel food which looked like spiders, which were red, and crawled over his 
hand when he took them up. They look like spiders ; the Mackerel are 
especially fond of them. At Boone Island, Me., in July, 1850, the water 
all around the island was red for one hundred yards from the shore ; these 
crawled up the rock-weed on the shore until it was red. He took the 
sprays of rock-weed in his hands and pulled them slowly to him, and the 
Mackerel, one and a half pound fish, would follow in quite to the rocks. 
He killed three with his oar, and tried to catch some in a basket by troll¬ 
ing them over it, but they were too quick for him. He asked his old 
skipper, Capt. Gorham Babson, what they were, and was told that they 
were “ Boone Island bedbugs.” And, said he, “ Young man, when you 
see this kind of bait, no matter if you don’t see any fish, never leave • the 
fish will be there in a few days.” 
Then there is another kind, called “snappers.” These are white, and 
dart rapidly about in the water; they are doubtless small crustaceans. 
He says that sometimes they swim at the surface, where the Mackerel fol¬ 
low them. A few days before he had been standing on the stern of his 
vessel, and though he could see nothing under the water he knew the 
snappers were there about two feet below the surface, for he could see a 
school of Mackerel' swimming along, opening their mouths and taking in 
their food, and then letting the water out through their gills. 
