436 Percesoces and Rhegnopteri 
The Mullets: Mugilide.—The mullets (Mugilide) are more 
clumsy in form than the silversides, robust, with broad heads 
and stouter fin-spines. The ventral fins are abdominal but 
well forward, the pelvis barely touching the clavicle, a con- 
dition to be defined as ‘“‘subabdominal.”’ The small mouth 
is armed with very feeble teeth, often reduced to mere fringes. 
The stomach is muscular like the gizzard of a fowl and 
the species feed largely on the vegetation contained in mud. 
There are numerous species, mostly living in shallow bays 
and estuaries, but some of them are confined to fresh waters. 
All are valued as food and some of them under favorable con- 
ditions are especially excellent. 
Most of the species belong to the genera Mugil, the mullet of 
all English-speaking people, although not at all related to the 
red mullet or surmullet of the ancient Romans, Mullus barbatus. 
The mullets are stoutish fish from one to two feet long, 
with blunt heads, small mouths almost toothless, large scales, 
and a general bluish-silvery color often varied by faint blue 
stripes. The most important species is Mugil cephalus, the 
common striped mullet This is found throughout southern 
Europe and from Cape Cod to Brazil, from Monterey, California, 
to Chile, and across the Pacific to Hawaii, Japan, and the Red 
Sea. 
Mr. Silas Stearns compares a school of mullets to barnyard 
fowls feeding together. When a fish finds a rich spot the others 
flock about it as chickens do. The pharyngeals form a sort of 
filter, stopping the sand and mud, the coarse parts being ejected 
through the mouth. 
The young mullet feed in schools and often swim with the 
head at the surface of the water. 
The white or unstriped mullets are generally smaller, but 
otherwise differ little. AZugil curema is the white mullet of 
tropical America, ranging occasionally northward, and several 
other species occur in the West Indies and the Mediterranean. 
The genus Mugil has the eye covered by thick transparent 
tissue called the adipose eyelid. In Liza the adipose eyelid is 
wanting. Liza captito, the big-headed mullet of the Mediterra- 
nean, is a well-known species. Most of the mullets of the south 
seas belong to the genus Liza. Liza melinoptera and Liza 
