306 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



size of the latter (4 to 5 inches long) are easily 

 separable from silversides by the fact that their 

 anal fin is only about half as loog in relation to the 

 length of the body, while the second dorsal orig- 

 inates over the origin of the anal instead of well 

 behind it. Furthermore, the head of the mullet is 

 shorter; its nose blunter; its profile quite different 

 (compare fig. 164 with fig. 159); its eye smaller; 

 its body stouter (about one-fourth as deep as 

 long) ; and it lacks the silvery side stripes so char- 

 acteristic of the commoo silverside. There are 

 four spines in its first dorsal fin, 1 spine and 8 soft 

 rays in the second dorsal, 3 spines and (usually) 

 8 rays in the anal. Young fish, 2 inches long or 

 less, have only 2 spines in the anal, the first soft 

 ray later developing into a spine. 67 The first 

 dorsal stands over the tips of the pectorals or close 

 behind them; and the tail is forked moderately 

 deep. The soft dorsal fin and anal fin are almost 

 naked (they are scaled in most of the other 

 American mullets), but the body and head are 

 clothed with large rounded scales. 



Color. — Adults are bluish gray or greenish above, 

 silvery on the lower part of the sides and below; 

 the scales on the sides have dark centers which 

 form longitudinal lines; the fins are sometimes 

 partly dusky. Young fry are bright silvery. 



Size. — The common mullet grows to a length of 

 2)i feet in warmer waters, but small specimens 

 alone have been found along our northern coasts. 



General range. — Both sides of the temperate 

 Atlantic; from Brazil to Cape Cod on the Ameri- 

 can coast, and as a stray to outer Nova Scotia; 

 also along the west coast of America from Mon- 

 terey (Calif.) to Chile, and in other parts of the 

 Pacific. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — -Mullets are 

 common as far north as New York, less so to 

 Woods Hole, but so rarely do they stray past 

 Cape Cod that there are only a half dozen records of 

 them in the Gulf of Maine, viz, at Provincetown, 

 at Essex M in northern Massachusetts, at Freeport, 

 Harraseeket River, Clapboard Island, and Casco 

 Bay in Maine, each based on an odd fish. And 

 one has also been taken in Bedford Basin near 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia. 69 Mullet are more likely to 

 visit the cool waters of the Gulf in late summer or 

 early autumn than at any other season. They 

 have been known to winter as far north as New 

 York, in the mud, but it is not likely that the few 

 strays that round Cape Cod survive the cold sea- 

 son, nor is there any reason to suppose they ever 

 breed in the Gulf, for immature fish alone are 

 found at Woods Hole. 



THE BARRACUDAS. FAMILY SPHYRAENIDAE 



The slim bodied barracudas, with their long, 

 pointed heads, somewhat resemble the pikes in 

 general appearance. But they are distinguishable 

 from the latter at a glance by having two dorsal 

 fins. The lower jaw projects beyond the upper, 

 and both jaws are studded with large pointed 

 teeth of unequal sizes. The gill covers are scaly, 

 and there is a well-developed lateral line. The 

 first dorsal is spiny, the second soft-rayed. The 

 anal is roughly opposite the second dorsal, the 



" See Jaoot (Trans. Amer. Microscopical Soc, vol. 39, 1920, pp. 204-214) 

 or a study of the growth of the mullet. 



ventrals opposite the first dorsal, the pectorals 

 short, the caudal forked. 



Northern barracuda Sphyraena borealis DeKay 

 1842 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 825. 



Description. — The combination of slender shape 

 with long head, projecting lower jaw, a first dorsal 



u There is (or was) a specimen so labeled in the collection of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. 

 ■ Reported by Vladykov, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 6. 



Figure 165. — Northern barracuda (Sphyraena borealis), Woods Hole. From Goode. Drawing by H. L. Todd. 



