MULLETS. 159 



of which I am able to express my belief that it 

 usually selects for food nothing that has life ; 

 although it sometimes swallows the common 

 sand worm. Its good success in escaping the 

 hook commonly proceeds from its care not to 

 swallow a particle of any large or hard substance, 

 to avoid which it repeatedly receives the bait into 

 its mouth, and rejects it; so that when hooked 

 it is in the lips, from which the weight and 

 struggles of the fish often deliver it. It is most 

 readily taken with bait formed of the fat entrails 

 of a fish, or cabbage boiled in broth. 



*' The Grey Mullets shed their spawn about 

 Midsummer ; and in August the young, then an 

 inch long, are seen entering the fresh-water, 

 keeping at some distance above the tide, but re- 

 tiring as it recedes. The change and rechange 

 from salt water to fresh seems necessary to their 

 health, as I judge from having kept them in 

 glass vessels." * 



The agility displayed by this fish in escaping 

 from danger, and the sagacity which impels it to 

 put its powers into requisition, were known to the 

 ancients as well as to modern fishermen. The 

 continental fishers often lose a whole shoal in the 

 manner described by Mr. Couch, a single one 

 leaping the net-line, and all the rest following like 

 sheep at a fence-gap. To obviate such a disap- 

 pointment they use in some parts of the Medi- 

 terranean a sort of double net, so formed that the 

 exterior net shall receive those fishes that over- 

 leap the interior. Oppian long ago thus cele- 

 brated the prowess of this fish : — 



* Yarrell's British Fishes, i. 236. 



