The shad is found in the Severn and Thames in considerable quantities about the second week in July. They reach the fresh water about May, deposit their spawn, and return to salt water in July. Their scales are large.

The Sprat (C. Sprattus) has been the subject of a great controversy, like the parr—one party contending that it is the young of the herring; another, that it is a distinct species. Pennant, Yarrell, and many eminent naturalists adopt the first view: yet its specific characters, according to Pennant, are "greater depth of body than the young herring, gill-covers not veined; teeth of the lower jaw so small as to be scarcely sensible to the touch; the dorsal fin placed far back, and the sharp edge of the abdomen more acutely serrated than in the herring." Like the herring, they inhabit the deep water during the summer, following the shoal to the sea-shore in autumn. The sprat fishing commences in November and continues during the winter months, when they are caught in such numbers that in some localities they have been used as manure.

In support of the individuality of the sprat, the serrated belly and relative position of the fins are dwelt upon, together with the instance detailed by Mr. Mitchell, the Belgian consul at Leith, who exhibited a pair of sprats, having the roe and milt fully developed.

On the other hand, the abundance of the sprat has been adduced as a reason for its being the young herring. In addition to this, anatomists declare their anatomy shows no difference but size. "As to the serrated belly," says Bertram, "we may look on that as we do on the back of a child's frock, namely, as a provision for growth." If this is so, Dr. Bertram supplies material at once for thought and legislation. "The slaughter of sprats," he says, "is as decided a case of killing the goose with the golden eggs as the grilse slaughter carried on in our salmon rivers." But Mr. Bertram here overlooks a fact of which any one may convince himself, namely, that young herrings are caught without the serrated belly; nay, the curer's purchase is regulated by the sprat's rough, and the herring's smooth belly.

The Pilchard, Clupea pilchardus (Fig. 385), sometimes called the gipsy herring, visits our coasts all the year round. It was at one time thought, as the herring was, to be migratory, but, like that fish, it is now found to be a native of our own seas, and a constant inhabitant of our shores. It has been known to spawn in May, but the usual time is October, and authorities like Mr. Couch think it breeds only once a year. Its visit to shallow water causes immense excitement; persons watch night and day from the lofty cliffs along the Cornwall coast, and the watchers (locally called "huers") signal the boats at sea beneath them the moment they see indications of the approach of a shoal. Mr. Wilkie Collins gives an animated picture of the "huer:" "A stranger in Cornwall, taking his first walk along the cliffs in August, could not advance far without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular and even alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in his hand, waving it to the right and to the left, brandishing it over his head, sweeping it past his feet; in short, acting the part apparently of a maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add considerably to the stranger's surprise if he were told that the insane individual before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a week. And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer view of the madman, and observed a well-manned boat below turning carefully to the right and left, as the bush turned, his mystification would probably be complete, and his ideas as to the sanity of the inhabitants would be expressed with grievous doubt.

"But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. He would learn that the man was an important agent in the pilchard fishery of Cornwall, that he had just discovered a shoal swimming towards the land, and that the men in the boats were guided by his gesticulations alone in their arrangements for securing the fish on which so many depend for a livelihood."

The pilchard, the young of which is believed to be the sardine of commerce, where its place is not usurped by the sprat, is sometimes taken in the Channel, on the coasts of Brittany and Cornwall, and in the Mediterranean, and on the coast of Sardinia, whence its commercial name. In Brittany floating-nets are employed. The fishing is conducted in boats, each carrying five men; hundreds of these boats may sometimes be seen engaged at the same time three or four leagues from the coast, the nets being only drawn when they are fully charged, when the fish are arranged bed upon bed in osier baskets, each boat returning habitually to port when it has secured twenty-five thousand fishes. The fishery extends over five or six months, the produce being about six hundred millions of sardines.

The Basque fishermen employ a net in the form of a sack, with rings at each corner.

On the coast of Cornwall, as we have hinted, it is one of the staple industries, and pursued systematically. Where they come from, and whither they go, seems alike unknown. All that is certain is, that they are met with in shoals swimming past the Scilly Islands as early as July. In August the inshore fishing begins, and they appear on various parts of the coast as far north as Devonshire and the south coast of Ireland up to October and November; no doubt those which have escaped the innumerable nets spread for them.

"The first sight from the cliffs of a shoal of pilchards," says Mr. Collins, in the work already quoted, "is not a little interesting. They produce on the sea the appearance of the shadow of a dark cloud, which approaches until you can see the fish leaping and playing on the surface by hundreds at a time, all huddled close together, and so near the shore that they can be caught in fifty or sixty feet of water. Indeed, when the shoals are of considerable magnitude, the fish behind have been known literally to force the fish in front up to the beach, so that they could be taken in baskets, or even with the hand.

"With the discovery of the first shoal, the active duties of the lookout, or huer, on the cliffs begin. Each fishing village places one or more of these men on the watch all round the coast. He is, therefore, not only paid his guinea a week while he is on the watch, but a percentage on the produce of all the fish taken under his auspices. He is placed at his post, where he can command an uninterrupted view of the sea, some days before the pilchards are expected.

"The principal boat used is, at least, of fifteen tons burden, and carries a large net called the 'seine,' which measures a hundred and ninety fathoms in length, and costs a hundred and twenty pounds—sometimes more. It is simply one long strip from eleven to thirteen fathoms in breadth, composed of very small meshes, and furnished all along its length with cork at one edge and lead at the other. The men who cast this net are called 'shooters,' and receive eleven shillings and sixpence a week, and one basket of fish out of every haul.

"As soon as the 'huer' discerns a shoal he waves his bush. The signal is conveyed to the beach by men and boys watching near him. The 'seine'-boat, accompanied by another, to assist in casting the net, is rowed out to where he can see it; then there is a pause and hush of expectation. Meanwhile the devoted pilchards press on—a compact mass of thousands on thousands of fish—swimming to meet their doom. All eyes are fixed on the 'huer;' he stands watchful and still, until the shoal is thoroughly embayed in water which he knows to be within the depth of the 'seine.' Then, as the fish begin to pause in their progress, and gradually crowd closer and closer together, he gives the signal, and the 'seine' is cast or 'shot' overboard.

"The grand object is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one side of the net perpendicularly to the bottom, the corks buoy the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the shoal, the two extremities are made fast, and the fishes are imprisoned within an oblong barrier of netting. The art is how to let as few of the pilchards escape as possible while the process is being completed. Whenever the 'huer' observes that they are startled, and separating at any particular point, he waves his bush, and thither the boat is steered, and there the net is shot at once; the fish are thus headed and thwarted in every direction with extraordinary address and skill. This labour completed, the silence of intense expectation that has hitherto prevailed is broken—there is a shout of joy on all sides—the shoal is secured.

"The 'seine' is now regarded as a great reservoir of fish. It may remain in the water a week or more; to secure it against being moved from its position, in case a gale should come on, it is warped by two or three ropes to points of land in the cliff, and is at the same time contracted in circuit by its opposite ends being brought together and passed lightly over its breadth for several feet. While these operations are being performed, another boat, another set of men, and another net, are approaching the scene of action.

"The new net is called the 'tuck;' it is smaller than the 'seine;' inside which it is to be let down, for the purpose of bringing the fish close to the surface. The men who manage this net are called 'regular sewers.' The boat is first of all rowed inside the seine-net, and laid close to the seine-boat, which remains stationary outside. To its bows one rope at the end of the tuck-net is fastened. The tuck-boat now slowly makes the inner circle of the seine, the smaller net being dropped overboard, and attached to the seine at intervals as she goes. To prevent the fish from getting between the two nets during the operation, they are frightened into the middle of the enclosure by beating the water with oars, and stones fastened to ropes. When the 'tuck' has at length travelled round the whole circle of the 'seine,' and is securely fastened to the seine-boat at the end as it was at the beginning, everything is prepared for the great event of the day—hauling the fish to the surface.

"Now all is excitement on sea and shore; every little boat in the place puts off, crammed with idle spectators; boys shout, dogs bark, and the shrill voices of the former are joined by the deep voices of the 'seiners.' There they stand, six or eight stalwart, sun-burnt fellows, ranged in a row in the seine-boat, hauling with all their might at the 'tuck'-net, and roaring out the nautical 'Yo, heave ho!' in chorus. Higher and higher rises the net; louder and louder shout the boys and the idlers; the 'huer,' so calm and collected hitherto, loses his self-possession, and waves his cap triumphantly. 'Hooray! hooray! Yoy—hoy, hoy! Pull away, boys! Up she comes! Here they are!' The water boils and eddies; the 'tuck'-net rises to the surface; one teeming, convulsed mass of shining, glancing, silvery scales; one compact mass of thousands of fish, each one of which is madly striving to escape, appears in an instant. Boats as large as barges now pull up, in hot haste, all round the nets, baskets are produced by dozens, the fish are dipped up in them, and shot out, like coals out of a sack, into the boats. Presently the men are ankle-deep in pilchards; they jump upon the benches, and work on till the boats can hold no more. They are almost gunwale under before they leave for the shore."

In the process of curing, the scene becomes doubly picturesque, but this is shore-work, with which our space forbids us to deal.

"Some idea of the almost incalculable multitude of pilchards caught on the Cornwall shores," says Mr. Collins, "may be gathered from the following data: At the small fishing cove of Trereen six hundred hogsheads were taken in little more than a week, during August, 1850. Allowing two thousand four hundred fish only to each hogshead (three thousand would be the highest calculation), we have a result of one million four hundred and forty pilchards caught by the inhabitants of one little village alone, on the Cornish coast, at the commencement of the season's fishing."

The Anchovy (Engraulis) is chiefly taken in the Mediterranean, and is much sought after for its delicate flavour when salted and cured. It is a small, slender fish, about four to four and a half inches in length; head pointed, mouth very wide, gill-openings large, abdomen smooth; when living it is greenish on the back, silvery beneath; after death it changes to a bluish black. The fishery which gives the most abundant results takes place on the shores of the Mediterranean, principally on the coast of Sicily, the isles of Elba, Corsica, Antibes, Frejus, Saint-Tropez, and Cannes. They are also taken on the Dalmatian coast, and in the neighbourhood of Ragusa.

The anchovy is only fit for food after being preserved and salted. The process of curing commences by throwing it into a strong brine; then, the head and entrails being removed, they are arranged in rows in barrels or boxes of tin, in alternate layers of salt and fish; finally, after some days of exposure, they are hermetically closed and despatched to market. Those prepared on the Provençal coast were formerly carried to the fair of Beaucaire, whence they found their way all over France, and to many parts of Europe. Now, the anchovies cured at Marseilles, and other Provençal ports, are sent direct to the various markets of Europe.

The Acanthopterygeans

include the Perch family, which is altogether a fresh-water fish, and, however interesting in itself, foreign to our present purpose. It includes also the cat-fish, which is also known as the bar, and more commonly the wolf-fish, in Bas-Languedoc and Provence. It is common in the Mediterranean, and in many of the great rivers which empty themselves into it. The Cat-fish (Fig. 386) has the appearance of an elongated perch; its colour, in the adult state, is of a uniform silvery hue, marked with brown and yellow spots in the young.

The Weevers (Trachinus), forming another division of this family, are characterised by their very compressed head and the strong spines of the operculum. They are elongated in shape, with short muzzles; they have a habit of burying themselves in the sand, and are formidable to fishermen, from the dangerous wounds they inflict with their spines. Trachinus communis (Fig. 387) is widely diffused in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

The genus Uranoscopus are so named from the position of their eyes, which are directed towards the sky, from οὐρανὸς, the heavens, and σκοπέω, I regard. From this peculiar arrangement, they can only see above them. They are closely connected with the cat-fish. Uranoscopus vulgaris (Fig. 388) belongs to the Mediterranean, and is remarkable for its thick cubical head and erect spiny dorsal fins.

The Mullets (Mullus) have the body thick and oblong, the profile of the head approaching the vertical line; scales large, two dorsal fins, widely separated—the rays of the first spinous, of the second, flexible; two cirri at the lower jaw. Two species are known, both inhabitants of our west and south-west coasts: the Striped or Red Mullet (Mullus surmuletus), rare as British, and the Red Mullet (M. barbatus). The first is a fine bright vermilion red, with three dominating yellow lines; the throat, breast, ventral, and lower surface of the tail are white, slightly tinged with rose; the fins have their rays more or less red, the iris of the eyes a pale gold colour, just touched with red; the head bears two barbels. This beautiful fish is plentiful in the Mediterranean and sometimes in the Channel, common in the gulfs of Gascony, and is frequently served on the table at Bordeaux and Bayonne, where it is known as the barbel; its flesh is a little flaky, of an agreeable flavour, but less esteemed than the red mullet.

The Red Mullet (Mullus barbatus) is clothed in brilliant colours of bright red, mingling with silvery tints upon the side and belly; it presents fine indistinct reflections, but none of the yellow lines which occur in the preceding species. It is to its brilliant colouring that the red mullet owes much of its celebrity. When we add that its flesh is white, firm, and agreeable to the taste, the estimation in which it was held by the ancients is sufficiently explained. With the Romans the mullet was an object of luxury on which they expended fabulous sums; they cultivated the fish in their fish-ponds not only as a delicacy of the table, but for the beauty of form and colour. This fierce love of beauty, however, too often approached to cruelty. Seneca and Pliny both give us to understand that the rich patricians of Rome gave themselves the barbarous pleasure of seeing the mullet expire under their eyes, in order to witness the various shades of purple, violet, and blue which succeed each other—from cinnabar red to the palest white, as the animal gradually loses its strength, and expires by a slow and cruel death. The great rival of Cicero, the advocate Hortensius, who attracted crowds of people to the Forum by his eloquent and elegant discourses, had an inordinate passion for this kind of enjoyment. These little inhabitants of the waters were led by a small canal which was carried under the festive table, and his great enjoyment was to witness the agonies of the unhappy fish just taken from its native element and carried to the table, palpitating with its dying convulsions, as it perished beneath his eyes, he in the meanwhile enjoying a sumptuous banquet. The possession of these poor creatures had, in short, become the rage, a furious passion, and their price soon became excessive. A fish of three pounds produced a considerable sum to the fortunate fisherman, while one of four and a half pounds was simply ruinous, says Martial. Asinius Gelius purchased one for eight thousand sesterces (upwards of sixty pounds). Under Caligula, according to Suetonius, three mullets cost thirty thousand sesterces (about two hundred and forty pounds). Although it is no longer the object of ferocious enjoyment on the one hand, or prodigal expenditure on the other, it is still much sought after, both for its beauty of colour and excellent table qualities. It is found in many seas, but particularly in the Mediterranean, where it is taken all round the coast, usually in muddy bottoms; it is fished for both by line and net.

The Gurnards (Trigla) are remarkable for the singular manner in which the head is mailed and cuirassed; the operculum and shoulder-bones are armed with spines, having trenchant blades, which give them a disagreeable, even a hideous, physiognomy, and has procured them various names, such as sea-frog, sea-scorpion, sea-devil, and sundry other equally significant names. With this forbidding appearance, however, the gurnards are among the most resplendent inhabitants of the sea. Nothing can exceed the beauty of their markings; but the brilliancy with which Nature has gifted them is their misfortune; it betrays them to their enemies, which are found in the air as well as in the water, and without their prodigious fecundity this species would long since have disappeared.

Twelve species of Trigla are known. In the British seas the commonest species is the Grey Gurnard (Trigla gurnardus), a silvery-grey fish, more or less clouded with brown and speckled with black. A rare species with us, but very common in the Mediterranean, is the Red Gurnard, Trigla pini (Fig. 389). It is of a fine bright rose-red colour, paler beneath and more vivid about the fins, of which there are two distinct dorsal and one ventral. Beneath the pectorals are three detached rays; both jaws and front of the lower palate are armed with fine velvety teeth. The Perlon, or Sapharine Gurnard (T. hirundo), is a large and handsome fish, remarkable for the lively green and blue hues of the inner surface of its large pectoral fins.

The Flying Gurnard (Dactylopterus volitans) somewhat resembles the Triglas, but differs in having the fin-rays of the pectorals connected by membranes, by which it is enabled to support itself some time in the air, like the flying-fish; the pectorals, when extended, forming a sort of parachute (Fig. 390), which sustains it when it leaps out of the water. Several species are known.

All nature seems to conspire against these singular creatures, while they have been gifted with the double power of swimming and flying. The flying-fish only escapes from the Bonitas, and other voracious fishes which pursue it on the bosom of the sea, to expose itself to the attacks of the inhabitants of the air. A crowd of sea-fowl, such as frigate-birds, the albatross, and the gulls, carry on a bloody war with them when they venture on flight. Enemies thus pursue the unhappy fish whatever element it betakes itself to. Nevertheless it passes from one element to the other with an energy which frequently defeats the attacks of its enemies. When it leaps from the sea to the height of five or six feet, it sustains itself for several hundred feet, changing its direction. In its flight it may be compared to that of the flying dragon; the popular name given to it is said to be derived from the grunting noise they make on being taken out of the water.

Labyrinthiform Pharyngeans.

In the fishes of this order the superior pharyngeal bones are divided into numerous and irregular little leaflets, which intersect the cellules situated under the operculum, which again serve to retain a certain quantity of water. This water preserves the gills, however, when the animal is dry, which permits them to live on shore, where they frequently contrive to creep over great distances in search of water. The genus Anabas, from ἀναβαίνω, to ascend, possess this peculiarity of organization in a remarkable degree; it enables them to leave the rivers and marshes and little watercourses of Borneo and Java, and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, and creep through the herbage or along the ground by means of the inflexions of their bodies, the dentation of their opercules, of their spines and fins. This fact, although only recently known to modern naturalists, was well known to the ancients, and has been recorded by Theophrastus.

The family of the Scomberoides is the most important group in the order, comprehending some of the fishes most useful to man, from their size, the excellence of their flesh, and their abundance. The Tunny (Thynnus, Cuv.), the Mackerel (Scomber scombrus), and the Bonita (Thynnus pelamys), have yielded, from the remotest antiquity, immense resources as human food, both in the fresh and preserved state.

The tunny, while resembling the mackerel in many respects in its general form, is rounder, and attains a much larger size, being sometimes found eight and nine feet in length, and weighing three to four hundred pounds. The upper part of the body is a bluish-black; the belly is grey, with silvery spots. These fishes sometimes present themselves in the Atlantic, but in the Mediterranean they are very abundant. At some periods of the year they approach the coast in innumerable shoals, and in numerous serried ranks, forming a vast battalion, which conceals itself under the waves, and only betrays itself on the exterior by the motion of the sea, caused by such vast numbers travelling rapidly through the water. In many localities the shoals of tunnies show themselves in the spring, pursuing their way towards the east, and in the autumn we find them pursuing an opposite direction. We see the same thing on the coast of Provence. Upon the coast of La Ciotat a first fishing takes place from the months of March to July, and a second again from July to October. But at other points of the coast they arrive at the same time from very different directions; nevertheless, in some places they are only winter visitors.

The tunny-fishing goes back to the remotest antiquity. The Phœnicians, the first navigators known, carried it on on the coast of Spain. In our days the fishing is carried on with great activity on the coasts of Provence, of Sardinia, and Sicily.

The fishing is generally carried on by the tunny-net, but in Provence it is fished with an enclosed net called the madrague.

The tunny-net consists of a combination of nets, which is quickly cast into the sea in order to head the tunnies at the moment of their passage. When the sentinels, posted for the purpose, as in the pilchard fishery, have signalled the approach of a shoal of tunnies and its direction, by the indications of a flag which points to the spot occupied by the finny tribe, the fishing-boats are immediately directed to the designated spot, and ranged in curved lines, forming with the light floating net a half circular enclosure, turned towards the shore, the interior of which is called the garden. The tunnies thus enclosed in this garden, between the coast and the net, become agitated with terror. As they advance towards the shore they press upon the enclosure, or rather a new interior enclosure is formed with other nets held in reserve. In this second enclosure an opening is left, through which the tunnies have to pass. In continuing thus to diminish the space by successive enclosures, each occupies a smaller diameter, in which the fish are enclosed in about a fathom and a half of water. At this moment a species of seine-net is thrown into the garden. This net is hauled into shallow water by force of arms, and the small tunnies are taken by the hand, the larger by hooks. The boats are charged with them, and they are carried ashore. A single day's fishing will sometimes produce as many as sixteen thousand tunnies, each from twenty to five and twenty pounds weight.

When the park, in place of being established for a single fishery, is a permanent construction in the sea, it is called, in Provence, a madrague. The madrague is a vast enclosure. The netting which forms the partitions of its chambers are sustained by buoys of cork on the surface, and kept down by heavy stones and other weights on the lower edge, and maintained in this position by cords, one extremity of which is attached to the net, and the other is moored to an anchor. The madrague is intended to arrest the shoals of tunnies at the moment when they abandon the shore in order to return to the open sea. For this purpose a long alley or run is established between the sea-shore and the park or madrague. The tunnies follow this alley, and, after passing from chamber to chamber, betake themselves at last to the body of the park.

In order to force them into the madrague they are pressed towards the shore by means of a long net, which is extended in their rear attached to two boats, each of which sustains one of the upper angles of the net. When the fishes come to the last compartment, the fishermen raise a horizontal net, which makes a sort of plate of this compartment, in which the fishes are gradually raised to the surface of the water. This operation occupies the whole night.

In the morning the tunnies are collected in a very narrow space, and at varying distances from the shore; and now the carnage commences. The unhappy creatures are struck with long poles, boat-hooks, and other weapons. The tunny-fishing presents a very sad spectacle at this its last stage; fine large fish perish under the blows of a multitude of fishermen, who pursue their bloody task with most dramatic effect. The sight of the poor creatures, some of them wounded and half dead, trying in vain to struggle with their ferocious assailants, is very painful to endure. The sea, red with blood, long preserves traces of this frightful carnage, of which an illustration is attempted in Pl. XXXI.

The flesh of the tunny is much esteemed, being firm and wholesome. It is called the salmon of Provence. "For our part," says M. Figuier, "we put it far above the salmon. Nothing is comparable to the fresh tunny thrown into a hot frying-pan, and sprinkled with vinegar and salt. When properly cooked, nothing can be more firm or savoury. In short, nothing of the kind can rival, or even be compared, with the tunny, as we find it at Marseilles and Cette."

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 neighbouring 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, preserved in the vinegar of Lunel, a household is pretty well prepared for any event.

The Mackerel (Scomber scombrus) is too well known to require minute description. Who has not admired these fishes, with their steel-blue 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 heightened 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. 391), and the mackerel of the Mediterranean, Scomber colias, 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 Cavallo of the Spaniards; the well-known Mackerel of our own shores, and the Makril 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, but 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. Here 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 Lowestoft and Yarmouth take their great harvest in May and June; in the Firth of Forth, and on the north coast of Scotland, at a few weeks later.

As mackerel are very voracious, they greedily devour all sorts of bait, but they are chiefly taken by the drift-net. The drift-net is twenty feet deep and a hundred and twenty feet long, well buoyed at the upper edge, but without weights at the bottom. The meshes, made of fine twine tarred to a reddish colour for preservation, are calculated to admit the head of the fish and catch it by the gills, so as to prevent its withdrawal. A fleet of mackerel-boats dragging these large nets, which are extended vertically in the sea, or float between the two tides, is well represented in Pl. XXXII.

The flesh of the mackerel is fat and high flavoured. Among the ancients a liquid was extracted from this fat called garum, which was considered a very nourishing preparation. The price of this liquid was very high; in modern measures it was valued at about sixteen shillings the pint. It was acrid, half putrefied, and very nauseous, but it had the property of rousing the appetite and stimulating the digestive organs. Garum played the part of a condiment at a period when the exciting array of Indian spices was unknown. Seneca charges it, as we do pepper and other hot spices taken in excess, with destroying the stomach and health of gourmands. This garum is spoken of by the traveller Pierre Belon, writing in the sixteenth century, as being held in great estimation at Constantinople in his time. Rondelet, the author of a very remarkable book published in 1554, who ate garum at the table of William Pellicier, Bishop of Maguelonne, thought he could trace the liquid not to the mackerel, but to one of the Sparoïdes (Sparus smaris).

The mackerel possesses phosphorescent properties which cause it to shine in the dark, especially after death, when decomposition has commenced.

The mackerel is not only voracious, but, in spite of its small size, it has the hardihood to attack fishes much larger and much stronger than itself. It is even said that they love human flesh. According to the naturalist bishop, Pontoppidan, who lived in the sixteenth century, a sailor belonging to a vessel which had cast anchor in one of the Norwegian ports, when bathing one day in the sea, was assailed by a shoal of mackerel. His companions came to his relief; the eager band were repulsed with great difficulty, but not till it was too late: the unfortunate sailor was so exhausted that he died a few hours after. By a natural law of compensation the ubiquitous mackerel is surrounded by numerous enemies; the larger inhabitants of the ocean eagerly devour them. Certain fishes, in appearance very weak, such as the muræna, fight them with great advantage.

Closely connected with the mackerel and other Scombridæ, we have the Bonita of the Tropics. This is a fish of considerable size, celebrated by its pursuit in great shoals of the flying-fish, of which we have already spoken. The Bonita (Thynnus pelamys) is not unlike the mackerel in shape, but less compressed, and upwards of twenty-five to thirty inches long. It is occasionally found on our coast, but only as an accidental visitor, for its true home is the Tropics. It is a beautiful fish of a fine blue colour, with short pectoral fins and four longitudinal bands on each side of the belly. It is easily harpooned from the dolphin-striker, and appears to have the power of generating electricity. Any one grasping the living fish is violently shaken as in palsy, "agitans," so much so that the most resolute son of Neptune cannot control his speech; every attempt culminates in an unintelligible spasmodic sputter. The instant the bonita is dropped, the muscles resume their routine action.

The Sword-fish, Xiphias gladius (Fig. 392), so called from the upper jaw being elongated into a formidable spear or sword, was known to the ancients, and has borne the name which recalls its salient characteristic from very early times. In short, it is recognized at a glance from its organic structure, and from the resemblance of its prolonged horizontal and trenchant muzzle to the blade of a sword. With the ancients it was Ξιφίας, and Gladius; with the moderns it is the Sword-fish, the Dart, the Spece spada, and l'Espadon épée.

This fish attains a great size, being found in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, in company with the tunny, from five to six feet in length. Its body is lengthy, and covered with minute scales, the sword forming three-tenths of its length. On the back it bears a single long dorsal fin; the tail is keeled, the lower jaw is sharp, the mouth toothless, the upper part of the fish bluish-black, merging into silver beneath. It seems to have a natural desire to exercise towards and against all the arm with which Nature has furnished it; it darts with the utmost fury upon the most formidable moving bodies; it attacks the whale; and there are numerous and well-authenticated instances of ships being perforated by the weapon of this powerful creature.

In 1725, some carpenters having occasion to examine the bottom of a ship which had just returned from the tropical seas, found the lance of a sword-fish buried deep in the timbers of the ship. They declared that, to drive a pointed bolt of iron of the same size and form to the same depth, would require eight or nine blows of a hammer weighing thirty pounds. From the position of the weapon it was evident that the fish had followed the ship while under full sail; it had penetrated through the metal sheathing, and three inches and a half beyond, into the solid frame.

The sword-fish has obstinate combats with the saw-fish, and even the shark, and it is supposed that when he attacks the bottom of a vessel he takes that sombre mass for the body of an enemy. But this terrible jouster, this Paladin of the abyss, often becomes himself the prey of a most contemptible enemy. A miserable little parasite, the Pennatula filesa, penetrates its flesh, and almost drives it mad with pain.

The flesh of the young sword-fish is white, compact, and of excellent taste; that of adults resembles the tunny. It is the object of a fishery of some importance in the Straits of Messina. The fishermen of Messina and Reggio join in this fishery with a great number of boats, carrying brilliant flambeaux, while one of the crew is stationed at the mast-head to announce the approach of the sword-fish. At a given signal the boats rush on to attack them with the harpoons (Fig. 393). During this fishery the sailors sing a peculiar melody, but without words.

The family of Pediculate Pectorals is so named from the fishes of which it is composed bearing their pectoral fins on a species of arm which forms a prolongation of the carp bone; it includes the Frog-fish, remarkable for the excessive circumference of the head and shoulders as compared with the rest of the body, the immense opening of a jaw, armed with pointed teeth, and the cutaneous jagged stripes of various lengths with which it bristles at many points. Its skin is soft, smooth, and without scales or other asperities; the members which support the pectorals, and other peculiarities, combine to render it a hideous and forbidding object, well calculated in ignorant and superstitious times to frighten the multitude. The remains of this fish, prepared in such a manner as to be transparent, and rendered luminous by a lamp enclosed in its interior, has often helped to deceive and frighten the timid by its fantastic appearance.

The Frog-fish, Lophius piscatorius—Linn. (Fig. 394), which attains the length of five or six feet, lives in the sand, or sunk in the mud, leaving the long and movable filaments with which the head is furnished to float in the water; the shreds which terminate them act as natural bait when they float about in different directions, from their resemblance to worms and other living creatures. The fishes which swim above them, and which they see very well by the assistance of their two eyes placed on the summit of the head, are attracted by these deceitful decoys. When the prey arrives near to the enormous jaws, which are almost always wide open, it is engulfed and torn to pieces by its strongly-hooked teeth.

This manner of lying in ambush, and fishing, as it were, with a hook and line for fishes which its conformation does not permit it to pursue, has acquired for it the name of the frog-fish, which is sometimes given to it. It is found more or less in all parts of the Mediterranean and in many parts of the Atlantic, being frequently taken both in the Gulf of Gascony and in the Channel.

The family of Labridæ comprehends: I. The Wrasse (Labrus), a genus of fishes decked in the most lively colours; for the yellow, green, blue, and red, forming bands of spots, give the body the appearance of being enriched with brilliant metallic reflections. II. The Julis, of Risso, the Mediterranean species of which is remarkable for its fine violet colour, relieved on each side by an orange band.

Of the Labridæ we represent here, as a type of the family, the adult Green and Red Labrus (Fig. 395), varieties of the commonest species, called the sea-parrot, the body of each being oblong, clothed with large scales: a dorsal fin, frequently with membranous appendages, thick fleshy lips, and large conical teeth; cheeks and gill-covers clothed with scales; gill-covers smooth at the edges; three spines in the anal fin. In Julis the cheeks and gill-covers are without scales; in other respects they resemble Labrus.