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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Mammals 



W. T. HORNADAY. 



Birds 

 William Beebe. 

 Lee S. Crandall. 



SrtiartmrntB : 



Aquarium 



C. H. TOVTNSKND. 



Reptiles 

 Raymond L. Ditmars. 



Published hi-monthly at the Office of the Society, 

 111 Broadway, New York City. 



Yearly by Mail, $1.00. 



MAILED FREE TO MEMBERS. 



Copyright, 1917, by the New York Zoological Society. 



Each author is responsible for the scientific accuracy 



and the proof reading of his contribution. 



Elwin R. Sanborn, 



Editor and Official Photographer 



Vol. XX No. 6 



NOVEMBER, 1917 



gorged with food that they were scarcely able 

 to move or swim beneath the surface. We 

 sailed among them, towing squids astern, but 

 the}^ failed to bite, only one being hooked in 

 the stomach and brought aboard. 



We then launched a small boat from the 

 yacht, and went among them, armed with two 

 gaffs, succeeding in gaffing twenty-five that 

 weighed on an average twelve pounds each. Our 

 small boat, with the combined weight of two 

 men and the fish, had aboard about six hundred 

 pounds, and we were compelled to return to the 

 yacht and unload for safety. 



We then made grapples by tying three long- 

 shanked bluefish hooks together and attaching 

 a bluefish line and an eight ounce sinker to each 

 grapple. Again we cruised among the fish and 

 caught thirty by casting our grapples and haul- 

 ing the line in rapidly, hooking them in various 

 parts of the body. Every cast did not reward 

 us with a fish, but with four men casting the 

 returns were frequent. We were two hours 

 among the weakfish before they sank, and ob- 

 served about four acres of them on the surface 

 at one time. 



THE MULLET 



(JMugil cephalus) 



By W. I. DeNyse 



THE common mullet is found on the Atlan- 

 tic Coast from Cape Cod southward and 

 generally moves in very large schools. 

 The first mullet make their appearance in 

 this locality about the fifteenth of June and are 

 usually young specimens traveling in small 

 schools of two or three hundred. About the 

 first of September larger mullet are seen asso- 



ciating with the smaller ones, and the schools 

 also increase in size, comprising several thou- 

 sand. The mullet is much sought after by the 

 local seine netters, for when a catch of them is 

 made, it is always large, several tons being 

 taken ; and they sell very well in the market. 

 The mullet caught in this vicinity are small fish, 

 running three to the pound. Occasionally 

 larger ones are taken, weighing two or three 

 pounds. Fishing for mullet with a seine is very 

 exciting work. The seiner must be quick with 

 his boat and row fast to circle a school, and 

 after the school is surrounded, the mullet will 

 escape the fisherman unless he gets the ends of 

 the seine ashore quickly. Then, too, after the 

 net is well up to the shore, the fish commence 

 to jump over the cork line, sometimes leaping 

 in such numbers that the eye cannot count 

 them; yet a great many are saved from the haul 

 by the net. If a second seine is placed around 

 the one containing the fish, no mullet will es- 

 cape over the second, and many a fisherman, by 

 this manoeuver, has scored a good day's work. 



The mullet is a very oily fish, and only a 

 small quantity can be eaten at a meal by most 

 people. Immense numbers are salted in the 

 south, and sold in the Southern and Middle 

 States. 



"It is the most generally popular and most 

 abundant food-fish on our southern sea-board. 

 Its abundance puts it within the reach of every- 

 body, blacks as well as whites. 



"The mullet is a bottom-feeder, and prefers 

 still, shoal water with grassy and sandy or 

 muddy bottom. It swims along the bottom, 

 head down, now and then taking a mouthful of 

 mud, which is partially culled over in the mouth, 

 the miscroscopic particles of animal or vegeta- 

 ble matter retained, and the refuse expelled. 

 When one fish finds a spot rich in the desired 

 food, its companions immediately flock around 

 in a manner reminding one of barn-yard fowls 

 feeding from a dish." 



The mullet makes good bait for catching 

 almost all kinds of fish, and is much sought 

 after by anglers. In this locality they often 

 hibernate, and are caught in winter by fisher- 

 men spearing for eels beneath the ice. They 

 lie on the bottom in the soft mud from twelve 

 to fifteen inches below the surface, just above 

 the eels that always go deeper. The writer has 

 taken mullet with the eel spear through holes 

 cut in the ice in Hog Creek, Sheepshead Bay, 

 Long Island. One winter, in particular, large 

 catches of them were made at this place by eel 

 spearers. 



