SOME FISH NOTES 307 



To-day the grey mullet's movements are capricious ; and 

 there can be no doubt that the few stragglers which come to 

 this estuary keep chiefly to the channel, or the edges of the 

 flats bordering on it. I have been given to understand that 

 great numbers used to go round the river to Oulton, where 

 they would congregate at one of the locks, probably to feed 

 on the Palcemon varians, which would be found there in 

 quantities ; and where one of the lock-keepers kept by him 

 a home-made spear with which now and again he secured 

 one or more of them. 



Huge numbers appear to put in on the south coasts ; and 

 some correspondence on the subject, to which I contributed, 

 may be worth preserving. In the Anglers News of February 

 24th, 1906, appeared the following: 



"A GREAT HAUL OF GREY MULLET 



" Salcombe . . . was on Monday all agog with excite- 

 ment, owing to the arrival of enormous numbers of grey 

 mullet. The fishermen at once went after them, and Mr. 

 Wm. Cove writes me that his net accounted for 14! cwt. of 

 fish, which averaged from 2 Ib. to 3 Ib. Writing on Tuesday, 

 he adds, ' Now there is another shoal of about two tons, 

 which we are trying to get.' " 



It would be interesting to know what caused the sudden 

 appearance of these immense shoals of mullet here. Were 

 they attracted by food, driven in by large predatory fish or 

 gales, or do mullet spawn hereabouts ? 



At Yarmouth the belief seems to have been that they 

 came up-river, like the smelts, to spawn ; but seeing that this 

 species spawns in the winter months, as rather curtly referred 

 to by Day, 1 its visits here must certainly have been for the 

 sake of the food found on Breydon the Ulva lactttca, and 

 the small Hydrobia clustering upon it and not for spawn- 

 ing. The probability is that it was for spawning purposes 

 this great shoal came to our southern, coasts. 



I replied to this note, and gave an account of the habits 

 of the species so far as I had observed them in this neigh- 

 bourhood. A note followed from Mr. Cove, the fisherman 

 referred to, to the effect that " they (the mullet) are chased 

 the same as the hounds after the hare by porpoises. We 



1 British Fishes , Vol. I, p. 231. 



