66 



THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



VI. The Red Mullet (Mugil barbatus, L.). 



This fish, comparatively common as far north as the 

 Cornish coast, is a rarity with us. It comes to our coasts 

 a little earlier than the Spanish Bream, arriving in autumn 

 and having its maximum with us in October and November 



(Fig. 5> 



One specimen was brought in from near Sule Skerry in 

 May 191 3 ; one from the south corner of the Viking Bank 



FlG. 5. Seasonal Distribution of the Red Mullet, from the 

 Aberdeen Records. 



(51 f.) in February 191 3 ; two others came from unrecorded 

 localities. All the rest, thirty-one in number (from November 

 191 2 to January 1917), came from the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Aberdeen, in Area XXIII, or else just across its 

 southern border. There was undoubtedly a marked invasion 

 of this fish in the late autumn of 1916, when twenty-five 

 were captured, out of our whole number of thirty-five. 



