GREY MULLET. 201 



Pennant both appear to belong to the M. capito of the 

 Regne Animal. 



This opinion, that the cephalus of Linnaeus is not the 

 true cephalus, receives support from other authors who 

 have attended to fishes. Professors Reinhardt and Nilsson 

 each refer the Grey Mullet of the Baltic and the coast of 

 Norway to the capito of Cuvier ; and the Prince of Mu- 

 signano, who has described and figured in his Fauna Italica 

 five species of Grey Mullets as belonging to the Mediter- 

 ranean, including both cephalus and capita, makes no refer- 

 ence to Linnaeus in his account of cephalus, and considers 

 his capito as identical with the cephalus of Pennant. 



Mugil cephalus is distinguished by having its eyes partly 

 covered with a semi-transparent membrane adhering to the 

 anterior and posterior edges of the orbit, and also by a large 

 elongated triangular scale pointing backwards, placed just 

 over the origin of the pectoral fin on each side. A dried 

 specimen of this fish from the Mediterranean, now before me, 

 exhibits both these peculiarities, which M. capito does not 

 possess. The vignette accompanying this article represents 

 the appearance of the pectoral fin, and the superposed tri- 

 angular scale of M. cephalus, both for the purpose of supply- 

 ing the means of comparison with our common Grey Mullet, 

 in which the pectoral fin-scale is short and blunt, and to 

 enable observers to identify the true cephalus, should it occur 

 on our coast ; which is not improbable, when it is recollected 

 how many Mediterranean species have been recorded as 

 occurring along the line of our southern shore. 



