242 INTEODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



May, 1838, 7 cwt. of these fish were taken at a single drauglit 

 of the net ; and on the same night 9 cwt. were secured by the 

 crew of another boat. A Mullet of large size will occasionally 

 weigh so much as 10 or 12 lbs. ; and one specimen is recorded 

 as being so much as l-if lbs.* 



The Mullet was believed by the ancients to be the most 

 innocent of fish, and one that did not select as food anything 

 that had life. But the Grey Mullet of Belfast Bay has habits 

 so very much the reverse, that Mr. Thompson remarks, after 

 an examination of the stomachs of many individuals, that they 

 presented " many hundred-fold greater destruction of animal 

 life than he had ever witnessed on a similar inspection of the 

 food of any bird or fish. From a single stomach he had taken 

 as many univalve and bivalve mollusca as would fill a large- 

 sized breakfast cup ; so that one of these stomachs may justly 

 be regarded as quite a storehouse to a conchologist." ■ In clear 

 moonlight, and by day. Mullet of every size often clear the net, 

 sometimes springing five or six feet over it, and when one has 

 set the example, nearly all are sure to follow it. Having sm-- 

 mounted the meshy barrier, they sometimes take two or three 

 additional leaps, and skim the sm-face beautifully, before again 

 subsiding beneath it. 



Tcenioidei.-f — We shaU not dwell on the family of the 

 Eiband-shaped fishes, as it contains but about half-a-dozen 

 of native species, and but httle is known respeetmg their habits : 

 we shall merely quote one fact to show how appropriate is their 



I 



Fig. 206.— Red Bakd-fish. 



name. A specimen of the Eed Band-fish {Cepola rubesceHS, 

 Fig. 206), as we are informed by Mr. W. Thompson, w\is, in 



* On Fishes new to Ireland — Annals of Natural History, July. 18.S8. 

 From this paper the infoiTiiation here given on this Mullet is extracted, 

 t The term denotes, like a baud or stripe. 



