BY WILLIAM MACLEAY, F.L.S. 411 



Eastern sea-board. The Mug Hi dee are Ac; mtl LOpterygmous Fishes 

 of oblong form, with large scales, no lateral line, dentition feeble 

 or none, two short dorsal fins, and the ventral lias abdominal. 

 They are inhabitants of both fresh and salt water, some species 

 almost exclusively the former, while others seem as exclusively 

 to keep to the latter. It may be confidently said of nearly all of 

 them however, that like the Salmon they take to the sea at certain 

 seasons, unless accidently shut up in the rivers or lakes, and it is 

 equally certain that at the spawning season they enter the harbours 

 and estuaries of the coast in immense shoals, and push up the 

 rivers and creeks to deposit their spawn. The period of their 

 arrival in search of spawning grounds varies considerably, in each 

 .species, and to a certain extent in the individuals of the same 

 species, but it is always at the commencement of the cold season 

 here, (from the end of March to May,) and I believe I have good 

 grounds for saying (as will be shown hereafter), that the ova do 

 not germinate until the month of October. 



The period at which the young Mullet leaves the rivers and 

 mud-flats is not so easily determined, and I suspect that the 

 analogy to the Salmon breaks down here, The fishermen to 

 whom I have spoken on the subject, all declare that the movement 

 of the shoals at the spawning season is simply out of one estuary 

 into another, and that they are not, and never are, deep-sea 

 Fishes. What makes this (the fishermen's view) the more likely 

 is that at that season the Mullet is extremely fat, and it is scarcely 

 possible that a fish which lives as Dr. Gunther informs us on the 

 organic substances contained in the mud of rivers and creeks, 

 sifted from the inorganic particles by the action of a pharyngeal 

 apparatus, can improve so rapidly in condition in the open sea 

 and a sandy or rocky bottom. I shall however have more to say 

 on this subject, when I come to the description and history of the 

 various Bpecies. 



Dr. Gunther Cat. Brit. Mus., Vol. ITT., p. 409.) divi 

 family into three genera : 



