When the breaching "sea-tiger," or horse-mackerel, with great goggle eyes staring stonily and lemon-hued, rearanal fins glittering goldlike in the shadow of its under body, comes rushing upon the scene, all minor species hurriedly decamp.
The horse-mackerel, or its familiar, is common in the Mediterranean, where it is known as the tuna, or tunny. For centuries the flesh of the tuna has been highly esteemed by the Latin races. Packed in oil, or salted, it has, since the days of the Phœnicians, been a very widely known commodity in the Mediterranean trade.
The horse-mackerel occurs in the west Atlantic as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It puts in an appearance at Provincetown early in June customarily, remaining in the vicinity until about October.
When much of the fishing-work there was performed by means of nets, the horse-mackerel was both a source of revenue and a pest to the small boatman; but the oil taken from it more than compensates for the loss resulting from its ravages upon nets.
One would suppose that the fishermen's nets would speedily be ruined by the creatures, but such is not the case. Upon striking a floating net, the horse-mackerel goes, bulletlike, straight through it—unlike the shark, which, rolling itself in the netting, tears the same enormously—making a clean, round hole, easy to repair.
Individuals weighing as much as 1,500 pounds have, it is said, been taken. Specimens of that weight are not taken off Provincetown, however, the average specimens weighing from 400 to 500 pounds, with an occasional 900 or 1,000-pounder.
The average length is about eight feet.
Horse-mackerel were seldom, if ever, used for food in this country until within a few years. At present quite all specimens taken in weirs are sent to city markets, where a ready sale at a good price is assured among immigrants from the south of Europe.
No horse-mackerel need now be set adrift as worthless, as was formerly the custom.
Usually the capture of a weir-imprisoned horse-mackerel is not a matter of great difficulty. Once in a while, however, the great strength of an individual nearly prevails over the efforts of its jailers. For instance: In July, 1897, Captain Henry J. Lewis, a skilful weir-manipulator, found in his harbor trap a big horse-mackerel, exhausted and apparently dead upon the dried-in "lint" when the crew gathered in the netting.