scull n also school, skull OED school sb2: obs var scull, skull (c1400-) for sense 1.
1 A large number of fish (esp cod) or seals swimming in company while feeding or migrating.
[1586] 1954 INNIS 38 [Davis reported] wee saw an incredible number of birds; having divers fishermen aboord our barke, they all concluded that there was a great skull of fish. [1598]1958 HAKLUYT 231 A skull of fish appeared on the shore. 1819 ANSPACH 391 Gulls and mews, with large bodies and remarkably strong pinions, fly in flocks over the surface of the water where there is a scull or shoal of capelins, or other fish. 1842 JUKES i, 230 Shoals, or, as they are called, 'schools' of fish, may sometimes be seen sweeping alongshore. [1856] 1975 WHITELEY 116 Rainy—saw two schools of seals—out one road and anchor. 1861 Harper's xxii, 598 He predicts the weather by the moaning of the sea, or by the 'loam' or 'glin' in the atmosphere, and never mistakes a 'cat's-paw' that ruffles the water for a 'skull' of fish briching (breaking) the surface. 1924 ENGLAND 272 We kept running through small 'sculls' of old fat, and picking up odd lots of a few. T 80/3-64 Four days wi' thousands an' millions o' fish! Fin an' fin an' dry on the water, like we see a scull o' dogfish. Cod-fish right up like that. 1979 TIZZARD 319 The seals were quite plentiful that day and there were schools of them everywhere in the cove.
2 The migration of 'caplin' from the deep sea to inshore waters to spawn along the beaches; CAPLIN SCULL.
1842 BONNYCASTLE i, 267 A capelin school, schule, or shoal, is eagerly looked for as the real commencement of the cod fishery. 1955 DOYLE (ed) 86 "When the Caplin Come In": When the school is all over an old fellow bellows / As he tosses his net on his back with a grin. 1969 Christmas Mumming in Nfld 10 And the cod, in a unique phenomenon, detach enormous numbers of their deep-sea populations each spring and summer, turning in pursuit of the tiny silvery caplin and other 'baitfish' on their annual roll, or 'scull,' towards the shore.
