THE RED MULLET-FAMILY. 119 



is slower in making its appearance than in the sea-bass, but 

 the tints are similar, viz. yellowish and black. On its escape 

 the small larva (Plate V, fig. 3) is characteristic, the large 

 ellipsoidal yolk projecting in front of the depressed snout, while 

 the oil-globule is ventral and median. A pre-anal fin is 

 present. The pigment-corpuscles are few, but pronounced above 

 and below the muscle-plates, and occur toward the posterior 

 third of the tail. By the fourth or fifth day (Plate V, fig. 4) 

 the eyes are pigmented, the yolk has disappeared, the mouth is 

 widely open, the pre-anal marginal fin is long with a pigment- 

 spot in front of the vent, and some chromatophores have 

 appeared in the marginal fin dorsal ly and ventrally. 



The Red Mullet-Family. Mullidae. 



THE RED MULLET. (Mullus surmuletus, L.) 



To those accustomed to the trammel-net on the shores of 

 Guernsey and the Channel Islands generally, not even the 

 numerous blue sharks and huge spiny lobsters that meet one 

 under these circumstances are more interesting than the bright 

 orange-red mullets that entangle themselves in the meshes. 

 Their striking coloration and the eagerness with which their 

 large lateral scales are torn off by the fishermen to impart to 

 their prizes that reddish tint so popular in the market, impress 

 themselves on one's memory. This fish has pelagic eggs 

 (Plate I, fig. 1) having a diameter of O93 mm., a single large 

 oil-globule with a diameter of 0'23 mm., and which in the 

 tanks at Naples, Raffaele tells us, were shed in great quantity 

 in early spring. The egg, further, is characterised by the very 

 evident pores of its capsule, by the large vesicles of its yolk 

 most distinct at the surface, but which change position during 

 the growth of the embryo, and by the proportionally large 

 oil-globule, under which pigment is developed after fixation. 

 Black pigment only, and that sparingly distributed, appears 

 on the body of the embryo. The eggs hatch in three or four 

 days, and the larva (Plate V, fig. 5) has a remarkable aspect 



