THE PERCHES AND SEA- BREAMS. 345 



treat both forms as one — is of a bright red hue, the colour 

 being fixed, and intensified, to render it more attractive 

 when offered for sale, by the cruel process of scaling the 

 fish before life is extinct. The scales are large and thin, 

 and the commoner surmullet is banded with bright yellow. 

 This fish is usually taken in the trammel, but a number 

 of instances, three of them at Bournemouth, have come 

 under my notice in which it has taken a hook baited with 

 mussel. It grows to a weight of 2 lbs., though the majority 

 weigh nearer }^ lb. It spawns late in the summer, and is 

 rarely caught in the colder months. Eed mullet are very 

 rare in north Scottish waters.^ 



3. The Sea-Breams. 



The Sea-Bream is a gregarious rock-haunting fish which 

 approaches the coast in the warm months, breeding in late 

 Common autumn. Though in greatest abundance in 

 Sea-Bream, ^j^g Channel, it is found on every part of the 

 British coasts, where it grows to a weight of 5 or 6 lbs. I 

 have caught many of 3 lbs. off the Lizard, on a favourite 

 ground of mine. In colour bright red, the adult having a 

 conspicuous black spot on the shoulder ; the young are 

 known as "chad," the intermediate size, of half a pound 

 or so, being denominated "ballard."- Sea -bream are 

 caught in the neighbourhood of reefs ; and it is a fact that 

 where chad of the smallest type are on the feed, there is 

 little hope of finding larger fish, which would favour the 

 theory of fish of an age keeping to themselves. Sea- 

 breams are known on various parts of the Scottish coast 

 as "Bulgarian (or Barbarian) Haddies." 



1 Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Fauna of Sutherland, p. 259. 



2 Just as the sea-bream is among our only common fishes with differ- 

 ent names according to size, so Australians know three stages of the 

 same fish, to wit, the " red brim," the " squire," and the famous, justly 

 famous, " schnapper." 



