SURFACE-FEEDING SEA FISH 357 



knocking noise of the chopper employed to prepare their food. 

 So acute is the hearing of these creatures, that old mullet 

 fishers would never dream of shouting to one another, and when 

 rowing after a shoal, the men, if careful, will muffle their oars. 



The thick-lipped variety is much more widely distributed 

 than are the large grey mullet. Quantities have been seen in 

 Belfast Lough and other parts of Ireland. From June to 

 September they are found on the coasts of the Orkneys and 

 Zetland, and also on the eastern and western shores of Scot- 

 land. Of all the sporting fish of the sea, grey mullet are the 

 most difficult to capture and among the gamest when hooked. 

 There are times when the lesser variety will feed ravenously, 

 and are caught in large numbers on a paternoster baited with 

 a live ragworm ; but the big fellows that we see with their broad 

 dark backs swimming round the piles in harbours, or under the 

 old-fashioned wooden jetties and piers, are singularly cautious 

 so far as taking a baited hook into their mouths is concerned. 

 In the matter of showing themselves their timidity is not 

 apparent. Sometimes they are speared or harpooned, and there 

 is a legend of an Italian gentleman who caught many fish in 

 this way from Margate Jetty. 



These fish are as difficult to net as they are to secure with 

 hook and line. When first surrounded there is, to use the 

 words of the reporter, ' a scene of great confusion ' ; but pre- 

 sently they become organised, and elect a leader who carefully 

 examines the net for holes, and, failing to find any, leaps over 

 the buoy rope, the rest following. In the Mediterranean the 

 fishermen sometimes heighten their net above the surface by 

 means of pieces of cane. Another plan is to sprinkle a little 

 straw or sawdust on the water inside the net. The mullet then 

 seem unable to distinguish between the rope and the straw, and 

 take short leaps. At Naples the fishermen sometimes place 

 rafts made of .reeds close to the outside of the nets encircling 



