CHAPTEE IX. 

 MULLID^, OR MULLETS. 



Ei/ (Tairpa ydpa ^cLTrrovTes a.TroTrvi^ova'l fie. 



Plato, Comic, ap. Ath. 

 May I sit heavy on tty chest to-night ! 

 I, that was wash'd to death in fulsome wine, 

 Poor Mullet, by thy guile betray'd to death. 

 May gasping, pulseless dreams thy soul weigh down, 

 Apicius ! and in night-mare think on me. 



/^UR purpose being to tattle about such ancient fish 

 ^ as are probably familiar to the reader's eye and 

 ear, we pass over, as not occurring in the Mediterranean, 

 nor included in Pliny's ancient catalogue, the two re- 

 maining groups of Percidse : — 1st, the Polynemi (one 

 species of which, P. paradiseus, is highly esteemed by 

 Indian nabobs; and Sndly, the long-bodied Sphyrenas, 

 (a group distinguished by their projecting under-jaws, 

 and containing an individual, the Sphyr. Barracuda,* 

 which is no less terrible than the white shark,) and 

 come at once to the subjects of our present chapter, the 

 Mullidse. Mullets are unlike perches in many important 

 particulars, such as having barbels dependent from the 

 lower jaw, small, closed mouths, and loose, large scales, 

 which come off almost as easily as those from a butter- 

 fly's wing ; they offer no less striking differences with 

 the succeeding group of gurnards, or modern triglias: 

 naturalists have therefore very properly agreed to place 

 them apart in most recent ichthyological arrangements. 

 Two fish monopolize the whole of this small subdivision 



* Nobis. 



