132 FISH GALLERY. 



and bits of red coral in the ornamentation of fancy boxes, many 

 of which are brought to England by sailors and travellers as 

 curios. 



Mugiliformes (Grey Mullets) . 



Wall- The suborder Mugiliformes or Percesoces includes the Sand- 



case 11. ee j s ^ Q re j Mullets and Barracudas, and occupies an intermediate 

 position between the Pikes on the one hand and the Perches on 

 the other. The pelvic fins, if present, are abdominal in position, 

 and consist usually of one spine and five soft rays. The pelvic 

 bones are not firmly connected with the shoulder girdle. The 

 shoulder girdle is suspended from the cranium, and has no 

 mesocoracoid bone. The supraoccipital bone extends forwards, 

 between the reduced parietal bones. 

 Skipper. The first family, the Scombresocidse, takes its name from 

 Scombresox, the Skipper, 451, also known as the Saury, a fish 

 sometimes caught off Britain, and reminiscent of the Mackerels in 

 the possession of a few finlets behind the dorsal and anal fins. 

 The Skippers swim at the surface in large shoals and are pursued 

 by the Tunny and Bonito as well as by Porpoises. Although their 

 fins are small, they are very rapid in their movements, and the 

 fishes spring out of the water and glide along the surface ap- 

 pearing scarcely to touch the water. 

 Gar-fish. The Gar-fish, Belone vulgaris, 449, of the coasts of Britain, 

 Prance and the Mediterranean, is less pelagic than the Skipper, 

 and has not the finlets; it is very voracious, and the larger species, 

 not found in British waters, are dangerous to man, not so much 

 from the injury inflicted by the teeth as from the ugly wound that 

 they can make by driving the closed beak into the flesh, as they 

 sometimes do when leaping out of the fisherman's net at the side 

 of the boat. Although the Gar-fish is good eating, it is disliked 

 by many people on account of the green colour of its bones. 

 There is a well-founded prejudice against green pigments other 

 than the green colouring matter (chlorophyll) of leaves and 

 fruits, but it so happens that the green substance in the bones of 

 the Gar-fish is not poisonous. A similar green coloration of the 

 bones is found in the Protopterus or African Lung-fish (Wall- 

 case 6). 



