248 ACANTHOPTERYGII. MULLET FAMILY. 



It ventures to some distance up rivers, returning 

 with the tide. Carew, the Cornish historian, had a 

 pond of salt-water in which these fish w r ere kept.; 

 and he says, that having been accustomed to feed 

 them at a certain place every evening, they became 

 so tame, that a knocking like that of chopping 

 would certainly cause them to assemble. Mullets 

 frequently enter by the flood-gate into a salt-water 

 mill-pool at Looe, which contains about twenty 

 acres ; and the large ones, having looked about for 

 a turn or two, often return by the way they had 

 come. When, however, the return of the tide has 

 closed the gates, and prevented this, though the 

 space within is sufficently large for pleasure and 

 safety, the idea of constraint and danger sets them 

 on effecting their deliverance. The wall is exa- 

 mined in every part ; and when the water is near 

 the summit, efforts are made to throw themselves 

 over, by which they are not uncommonly left on the 

 bank, to their own destruction. 



" This fish selects food that is soft and fat, or such 

 as has begun to suffer decomposition ; in search of 

 which it is often seen thrusting its mouth into the 

 soft mud ; and for selecting it, the lips appear to be 

 furnished with exquisite sensibility of taste. It is 

 indeed the only fish of which I am able to express 

 my belief that it usually selects for food nothing that 

 has life, although it sometimes swallows the common 

 sand- worm. Its good success in escaping the hook 

 proceeds from its care not to swallow a particle of 

 any large or hard substance; to avoid which, it re- 



