EDIBLE FISHES OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 119 



Sea Mullet : Hard-gut Mullet. 



Plate XXXr. 



B. vi. D. 4. 1/8. A. 3/8. Y. 1/5. P. IG. C. 14. L. lat. 40^2. L. tr. 14-15. 



Ccec. pyl. 4. Yert. 11/1-3. 



Length of head 480 to 5-40, of caudal fin 4-33 to 5-00, height of body 

 4"00-500 in the total length. Eye with the adipose lid extending to or 

 beyond the front margin and well beyond the hinder margin of the pupil ; 

 its diameter 3"40-4"00 in the length of the head, and 106-2"15 in that of the 

 interorbital space, which is almost flat : snout short and very broad, its length 

 from 1'00-1'20 in the diameter of the eye. Lips thin: jaws fringed with minute 

 ■cilia. Xostrils distant, the anterior minute and rounded, about equidistant 

 from the eye and the tip of the snout ; the posterior oval or pyritbrm, three 

 times as large as the anterior, with which it is connected by a naked shallow 

 groove. Free space below the chin broadly lanceolate, equal to or rather less 

 than the distance between the end of the snout and the posterior margin of 

 the orbit. The maxilla extends to beneath the anterior margin of the orbit. 

 Preorbital minutely denticulate, the deuticulations becoming almost obsolete 

 in large examples, not expanded behind. The distance between the origin 

 of the spinous dorsal and the base of the caudal is equal to that between 

 the same point and the end of the snout ; the first dorsal spine is the 

 longest, l'7o-200 in the length of the head ; the distance between the 

 origins of the two dorsal fins is equal to or rather more than the length of 

 the head : the anal commences beneath the origin of the soft dorsal, and its 

 anterior rays are subequal to those of that fin ; the posterior rays are pro- 

 duced beyond the median, thus forming a deep emargination on the outer 

 edge of the fin : the length of the ventral is from 2"00-2"40 in the distance 

 between its origin and the vent, and from l-50-l"75 in the length of the head : 

 the pectoral reaches to the ninth or tenth body scale, and is 1"40-1'60 in 

 the length of the head : caudal forked, the least height of the pedicle less 

 than the distance between the last dorsal ray and the base of the caudal, and 

 2'33-2"50 in the length of the head. Thirteen or fourteen scales between the 

 occiput and the origin of the spinous dorsal, four or five on the interspace 

 between the dorsals, and eight between the rayed dorsal and the cau'lal : first 

 <iorsal, pectoral, and ventral fins with enlarged pointed axillary scales. 



Colors. — Steel blue, with a tinge of green or olive above ; sides and lower 

 surfaces silvery; a small black axillary spot, and a golden spot on the upper 

 angle of the opercle : dorsal and pectoral fins dark bluish-gray, caudal and 

 anal yellowish-green. 



As with some' of our other food fishes this Mullet has two distinct breeding 

 seasons in each year, that of the autumn, which lasts from some time in March 

 until about the middle of May, being, however, by far the most important. 

 At this time they enter the estuaries, inlets, and saltwater lakes, which 

 indent our coastline from south to north, in almost incredible numbers, and 

 push on at once to the spawning grounds, which mainly consist of the mud 

 flats, which margin our rivers. Here, according to Macleay, the ova remain 

 undeveloped until the spring mouths, when they mature, and he instances an 

 occasion on which large shoals of young Sea Mullet, measuring up to an inch 

 and a half in length, were observed along the shores of Port Jackson about 

 the middle of October, from which fact he draws the following deduction : — 

 ^' As the time of spawning is never later than May, and as these fish could not 

 have been more than a day or two old, the inference is that the spawn had 

 remained in the mud near that spot (Elizabeth Bay) during the winter, and 



