EDIBLE FISHES OE NEW SOUTH WALES. 125 



these fishes are abundant." This statement, which is not only unsupported 

 but directly contradicted by all other authorities, needs confirmation. 

 Accordinr^ to Eamsay, however, it wnll take a dough bait. 



As a food fish this Mullet, both in its adult and immature state, is 

 deservedly popular, the flesh being always rich and nutritious, nor does 

 that of even the largest examples ever become coarse, as is so often the 

 case with other fishes. In a commercial sense this is undoubtedly the 

 premier fish of New South Wales, and when smoking and canning operations 

 are more extensively and scientifically cultivated, is capable of becoming 

 no inconsiderable a source of national wealth, and of being an influential 

 competitor with the smoked and canned fishes, which we are now compelled 

 to import. The roe is of very large size, and are most delicious, w hether 

 they are consumed in a fresh or smoked state. Mr. Edward Hill mentions 

 that " experiments have been tried by boiling them — the Mullet — down," 

 which resulted in the discovery that '• each fish yielded nearly a pint of fine 

 clear oil " ; we are not aware, however, that any practical attempt has ever 

 been made to utilise the intestinal fat in this direction, though it is probable 

 that such oil would possess valuable medicinal properties. 



This fine species frequents in enormous numbers the entire length of the 

 seaboard of the Colony. Of its occurrence on the Queensland coast Saville 

 Kent remarks : — " Taken in the order of their economic importance, 

 precedence is almost universally conceded to the Sea Mullet, a magnificent 

 fish growing to a weight of ten or twelve pounds and upwards. This 

 species arrives in Moreton Bay about the last week in April, continues 

 plentiful till the middle of July, and by August has passed away to the 

 north." In that Colony the immature fish is known as the " Mangrove 

 Mullet " a title infinitely preferable to that of " Hard-gut Mullet " in 

 use here. He also observes that the Mangrove or Sea Mullet is apparently 

 the species most easily accessible and best adapted for the purposes 

 of canning and exportation." Along the coastline of Victoria this species is 

 said to be known as " Sand Mullet," — a name which is with more propriety 

 applied in the home Colony to Myxus elongatus^ — and is everywhere 

 common ; Castelnau, speaking of it under the name of Miigil loaigi&nsis, 

 says that it is " much esteemed as food." The omission of South Austi'alian 

 scientists to give even so fragmentary a list of the fishes inhabiting the 

 Avaters geographically pertaining to their Colony, as wash its southern shores, 

 places us again in the unsatisfactory position of being obliged to infer, not 

 record as a fact, its presence in those seas, but since the British Museum pos- 

 sesses specimens from Perth, West Australia,it cannotbe doubted that it occurs 

 in more or less abundance along the entire length of our southern and south- 

 western seaboard. As to the latitude to which it attains in our north-western 

 equatorial regions we are equally in the dark, for judging from its ocrur- 

 rence so far to the northerly and easterly as the New Hebrides and Sandwich 

 Islands, we might well suppose that it would even more easily have penetrated 

 to the more distinctly accessible shores of those groups of islands wiiich belong 

 to the Austro-Malayan section of the Archipelago. Prom Tasmania 

 Johnston records this species, which he refers to Muqil cephaJofus, as 

 being " common along the north-eastern coast, George's Bay, Scamander 

 Eiver," and elsewhere states that it is very highly prized in the market, 

 attains to a much greater 'size than Agonostoma Jorsteri, but owing to its 

 distance from the chief centres of population is scarce in the markets, where, 

 however, it always commands a good price. 



Until a more exact system of trivial names shall have been established 

 throughout the Australian Colonies for such fishes as, from commercial or 



