Mr. Thompson on Fishes new to Ireland. 351 



much the greater number are taken here in trammel or set- 

 nets, but at low water the sweep or draught-net is used in the 

 gullets*, and also, in addition to the former kind, is employed 

 in fishing for them within the flow of the tide in the river 

 Lagan. They are generally sought for from about the middle 

 of March until the beginning of October, and are occasionally 

 taken before and after these periods. They probably never mi- 

 grate far, as in two different years, in the month of January, 

 dead individuals were washed ashore in the bay. The fishers 

 are, for their own sake, entirely guided by the weather, which 

 must be moderate, it being by night that the mullet is taken in 

 the greatest numbers, as, by reason of the darkness, they can- 

 not by leaping over it so well avoid the fatal net, though even 

 then they occasionally so escape. In clear moonlight, and by 

 day, fish of every size often clear the net, sometimes springing 

 five and six feet over it, and when one has set the example 

 nearly all are sure to follow it : having surmounted the meshy 

 barrier, they sometimes take two or three additional leaps, and 

 skim the surface beautifully before again subsiding beneath it. 

 In the stillness of the night, it is said, that by leaping and 

 plunging about, they make the water seem quite alive. In the 

 bright sunny days of summer, which they evidently much en- 

 joy, a whole shoal of mullet occasionally exhibit their dorsal 

 fins above the surface of the water, and when there are neither 

 nets nor other objects to obstruct them, may, in playfulness, 

 be seen springing a few feet into the air. This generally oc- 

 curs at high-water, when they appear to be more intent on 

 roving about than feeding, and penetrate as far up the river 

 as the tidal wave will bear them : at such times they have fre- 

 quently been captured in May's dock, within the town of 

 Belfast. 



Of their time of spawning I cannot speak with certainty, 

 nor have any individuals that came under my observation from 

 March till September been in the least degree spent by it, all 

 being firm and well-formed fish. When, on the 3rd of Janu- 



• These are narrow and often deep channels of water intersecting the 

 banks over which the tide flows. In using the draught-net here, the smaller 

 fish in leaping over it sometimes alight on the banks — at this time dry — to 

 their destruction. 



