EDIBLE FISHES OE NEW SOUTH WALES. 123 



peremptory stop is not put upon these short-sighted practices, the Mullet- 

 harvest, so much vaunted, will, so far as the metropolitan district is 

 concerned, be a thino; of the past within the next decade. 



Having once established these Mullet farms on a sound basis, similar 

 farms for the reception of such other of our littoral fishes as are not of a 

 roving disposition, as, for example the Whiting, Flathead, Flounder, Sole, 

 and Eel would soon follow. 



In the Report of the Royal Commission the following sentences which 

 require some explanation, occur : — " When the period at length arrives for 

 the mature fish to go to tlie sea preparatory to spawning, the instinct which 

 actuates them appears to be irresistible. In one instance, some years ago, 

 when Tuggerah Beach Lake was for a time shut up at its sea mouth, the 

 Mullet pressed in such masses in the direction in which the outlet should 

 have been that thousands of them were forced up on the land and perished. 

 An occurrence of the same kind is mentioned as having happened at Lake 

 Illawarra under similar circumstances. It is doubtful how long it is 

 between the rush of the fish to the sea and their reentrance into the 

 same or other rivers ; the belief is that the time is very short, that the 

 movement is only from one part of the coast to another, and always 

 from south to north. There can be little doubt that the fishes, after 

 spawning, find their way back to their old haunts, but they have very 

 seldom been seen so returning." 



The above would seem to denote that in the opinion of the Commission 

 the adult as well as the immature fishes spend their whole lives, with the 

 exception of the "very short time" elapsing between the "rush of the fish 

 to the sea and their reentrance into the rivers," in our estuaries ; this view 

 we cannot hold, nor do facts warrant its adoption; it is well known that 

 enormous shoals of these Mullet appear off the coast during the late 

 summer and early autumn months ; if the Commissioners' opinion were 

 correct, the question which would naturally suggest itself to anyone would 

 be, — where do these huge shoals come from ? The answer is not difiicult ; 

 as soon as each fish has shed its spawn it, having become greatly exhausted 

 in the process, immediately seeks deeper and more quiet waters and with 

 each ebbing tide drops unobserved down to the bays and thence finally 

 to the open ocean ; this migration, being composed of individual fish, is carried 

 out so quietly and at such a depth as to have escaped observation, and 

 probably lasts more or less continuously during the late autumn and the 

 winter months ; once having gained the outer beaches these individuals unite 

 into small bands, which, retiring into water of a moderate depth and keeping 

 strictly to the bottom, gradually drop down the coast, receiving from every 

 estuary and inlet which they pass a fresh accession to their numbers ; thus 

 during the spring and summer these ever increasing bands are aimlessly 

 drifting along, keeping, however, a general southerly direction, until about 

 the New Year, when the migratory instinct, consequent upon the ripening 

 of the ova, forces them more and more to the surface, and, a common impulse 

 leading them all in the one direction, the various bands unite as they proceed, 

 and form the enormous schools, whose presence on the surface has been 

 described as a "truly marvellous sight." From these schools as they move 

 slowly up the coast in a northerly direction more or less important bodies 

 detach themselves and seek each its own well known spawning ground. 



Between what parallels these great congregations of Mullet, as distinct 

 from other surface-schooling families, — such as the Herring, the Mackerel, 

 and the Scad, — exist, is a matter of great interest, whether viewed from a 

 scientific or commercial standpoint, and an appeal to the officers of our 



