GREA T BRITAIN. 1 1 3 



FAMILY X. GREY MULLET (Mugilidce). 



Geographical distribution. These cosmopolitan fishes are 

 found in most temperate and tropical seas, where they 

 frequent the shores, and ascend the larger rivers even into 

 fresh water. Some forms appear to be entirely restricted 

 to fresh water. 



GENUS I. Grey Mullet (Mugil). 



Respecting the mullets which live in the British seas, 

 some differences of opinion exist. Irrespective of M. 

 curtus, Yarrell, Thompson and Couch merely recognised 

 two, Mttgil capito, a " thin-lipped " species, and M. chelo, a 

 " thick-lipped." 



Mullets have frequently been kept in large salt and even 

 fresh-water aquaria. In 1831, Mr. Arnold, of Guernsey, 

 communicated to the Zoological Society of London some 

 experiments which he had personally carried out on this 

 subject, in a five-acre lake of varying depths, having a 

 muddy, gravelly or rocky bottom, and which was princi- 

 pally filled with fresh water. Here for nine months in the 

 year cattle came to drink, but in summer the water was too 

 salt, due to a supply from the sea being received through a 

 tunnel. Among the introduced fish were grey mullets, 

 which, it was remarked, bred as freely as if they had 

 remained in the sea. At Devonport exists a most beautiful 

 piece of water, on the three sides of which trees come down 

 to its edge ; a small stream flows in from the high lands 

 above, while at its lower end a tunnel communicates with 

 the backwater, and through which saline water obtains an 

 entrance. A long weir prevents the entrance of fish into, 

 or exit from, this lake. Here are many mullet, which the 



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