AMERICAN FISHES. 
of the flat fish, etc., spawns in the open sea, some times at a great dis¬ 
tance from the land, at others closer inshore.” Sars found them on the 
outer banks of the coast of Norway ; and Mr. Matthias Dunn, of Mevagis- 
sey, England, communicates to land and Water his observations of 
Mackerel found, with ripe spawn, six miles from the coast. 
The fish taken in the weirs and pounds on Vineyard Sound and about 
Cape Cod in the early spring are filled with ripe spawn ; and that the 
operation of spawning takes place on the American coast is shown by the 
immense schools of small fish that are taken throughout the summer, of 
various sizes, from a few inches up, and from Buzzard’s Bay to Portland 
and Penobscot Bay. No species of young fish is, at times, more abundant 
throughout the summer season than the Mackerel. 
The egg of the Mackerel is exceedingly minute, not larger than that of 
the alewife or gaspereau. It appears to be free from an adhesive envelope, 
such as pertains to the egg of the herring, and in consequence of which it 
agglutinates together, and adheres to gravel, the rocks or the seaweed at 
the bottom. As with the egg of the cod, that of the Mackerel is provided 
with an oil globule, which makes it float nearly at the level of the surface. 
I am indebted to Mr. Frederick W. True for an enumeration of the eggs 
in two Mackerel taken at Wood’s Holl, Mass., in May, 1873; one of 
these contained 363,107, the other 393,887. 
The only previous record of the number of eggs yielded by Mackerel is 
that made by Thomas Harmer, in 1764, and published in the “ Philoso¬ 
phical Transactions” of London, Vol. 57, p. 285. He found in one 
large Mackerel, weighing one and a quarter pounds, 454,991 eggs; in a 
second, of much the same weight, 430,846, and in a third, weighing about 
one pound two ounces, 546,681. 
The growth of the Mackerel has been studied by Capt. Atwood, 
and the same authority has, perhaps, more satisfactorily than any other, 
interpreted the facts from which may be deduced the conclusions as to 
their growth year by year. 
Referring to the small fish, six and a half or seven in length, which he 
believed to be the young of the year, caught by him in October, 1856, he 
says: “Fish of this size are sometimes called ‘Spikes,’ out I do not 
know their proper name. The next year I think they are the ‘Blinks,’ 
being one year old; the following year they are the ‘Tinkers,’ two 
years old, and the year after they return to us as the second size, three 
