12 GREY MULLET. 



So strong also is this impulse of watchfulness against restraint, 

 that to avoid it the Mullet will encounter danger, even when 

 the space enclosed is of considerable extent. In the port of 

 Looe, in Cornwall, there is a salt-water mill-pool of thirteen 

 acres that is enclosed on the side of the river by an embank- 

 ment, and into which the tide flows through flood-gates that 

 afford a ready passage for fish to the space within. When the 

 tide begins to ebb the gates close of themselves, but even 

 before this has happened the Mullets which have entered have 

 been known to pass along the enclosed circuit within the bank, 

 as if seeking the means of deliverance, and, finding no outlet, 

 they have thrown themselves on the bank at the side to their 

 own destruction. Even ^lullets of exceedingly small size have 

 been seen to throw themselves, head or tail foremost, over the 

 head-line of a net, where it would have seemed much easier 

 for them to have passed through a mesh; and so strong is 

 this propensity to pass over an obstacle rather than through it, 

 that examples of less than an inch in length have repeatedly 

 thrown themselves over the side of a cup where the water was 

 an inch below the brim. Fishermen, however, are acquainted 

 with a simple method, which, by deceiving the fish, is sufficient 

 to prevent their taking a successful leap over the net. A thin 

 layer of straw is scattered over the surface to the breadth of 

 a few feet within the head-line; and mistaking this for the 

 obstacle itself, the fish exhausts its efforts on the wrong 

 object, and remains a prisoner still, 



Risso describes another mode of taking this fish, by attracting 

 it with a light, and then darting at it a spear or trident, — 

 perhaps the crossed trident, or such as by sailors in England 

 is termed the grains; but it scarcely appears successful with 

 lis, although ingeniously contrived for the purpose. 



But a more remarkable and singular method of taking Mullets 

 is mentioned by ancient writers, although with some variation 

 as regards the particular species of Mullet. Pliny (B. 9, C. 25) 

 refers to it as simply the Mugil, the salacious properties of 

 which render them so unguarded, that in Phoenicia, and also 

 in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, at the time of coupling, 

 which is about midsummer, and near the influence of fresh 

 water, an individual of either sex, which was taken out of 

 the preserved pond, was fl\stcned to a long line that was 



