158 MUGILID.E. 



elsewhere, by the more experienced of them ; and are brouglit alike into 

 the market, though with very far from equal regularity or abundance : 

 the subject of the present chapter, M. corrugatus, constituting the main 

 supply, and being generally, at least upon the southern coast, the com- 

 mon staple species of the market. It is caught more or less throughout 

 the year ; but chiefly in the autumnal and winter months, and in shal- 

 low water (three to five fathoms) near the shore, in nets. It varies 

 much in excellence or quality ; but, speaking generally, it is more rank 

 or muddy-tasted in the spring or summer, as Rondelet observes of 

 M. cephalus, than late in autumn or in winter. 



Old fishes, which are very common, should be carefully avoided : for, 

 when boiled, the skin and muscles become strongly contracted, sepa- 

 rating from the bones, which they leave bare ; and the flesh is very 

 tough, hard, and tasteless. Such fishes may be known in the market, 

 not so much by their size, as by the largeness of their scales and scurfy 

 look. This fish may be kept well, and often with advantage, till the 

 second day ; and it is much improved, after transport up into the country, 

 by immersion in cool spring-water for a few hours before cooking. It 

 is best boiled; but, if scored across soon after capture, it may be also 

 broiled, when not too large. When not exceeding six or eight inches in 

 length, the young are peculiarly delicate, if fried. The full-sized fishes, 

 of from one and a half to two feet in length, weigh five or six pounds ; 

 but those which are from one foot to a foot and a half are perhaps the 

 best. This fish rarely exceeds two feet in length, and then only by a 

 few inches. Its breeding season is in the winter, as Aristotle long ago 

 observed of the other species ; and the male is found in milt from 

 December to April, and even as early as November;* in which month 

 and the following this Mullet is perhaps in best season for the table. 

 The female is full of eggs in a forward state of development in De- 

 cember. 



This, like its congeners, is a plain-coloured but peculiarly neat-look- 

 ing fish, remarkable for its small head, large scales, and a certain com- 

 pactness or solidity of form and neatness of aspect, caused no less by its 

 general soberness of colouring than by the absence of all sculpture or 

 appendages about the head or opercles. Its singularly corrugated upper 

 lip will serve for its immediate discrimination from all other European 

 species. In this character it approaches M. cirrhostoynus of Forster 

 (Cuv. and Val. xi. 127. t. 312), M. crenilabts, Forsk, and their allies: 

 but it is at once to be distinguished by the non-concealment of the 

 maxillarics under the suborbitaries when the mouth is closed, besides dif- 

 fering abundantly in many other points. It is again remarkable, that so 



* I luavc found the male at the end of April with the milt still large, soft, and crcaniy. 



