454 NATURAL HISTOEY OP AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



last of December, and during the whole time they are so numerous that scarcely a day passes in 

 which some cannot be taken with proper exertion. In September they usually commence schooling, 

 the schools increasing in size until the last of December, when they go outside to spawn, returning 

 in January, February, and March, poor and tasteless. In November, 1876, he relates, he took one 

 hundred and twenty-five from a single school with a cast-net in less than an hour's time, taking 

 twenty-six large ones at a single throw. During the dark nights in October, November, and 

 December, the Mullet swarm along the shore, feeding on the minute animals found in the sand and 

 attached to the rocks, where they can be taken in great numbers, often thirty to fifty in a few 

 minutes' time. They are preyed upon by all larger fish, from cat-fish to sharks, while porpoises, 

 ospreys, eagles, and pelicans consume enormous quantities. The Mullet is here thought very fine 

 either stewed, baked, or as a pan-fish. From the first of November to the end of the season they 

 take salt as well as inackerel, and every resident family is accustomed to cure a barrel or two for 

 private use. 



Stearns on Mullet in the Gulf of Mexico. — This chapter will be closed by quoting in 

 full the observations of Mr. Silas Stearns : 



"The Mullet is one of the most abundant and valuable food-fishes of the Gulf coast. It is 

 present on the coast and in the estuaries of the Gulf throughout the year, and in most places is 

 pursued by fishermen at all seasons, yet, for so common and important a fish, its habits seem to 

 be but little known or understood. Intelligent fishermen of long experience at particular points 

 have learned many details regarding their local movements, which may disagree in many respects 

 with those at some other point a hundred miles or so away. A few months spent on the southern 

 part of the Florida coast has led me to believe that there is a less migratory movement of Mullet 

 in that section than along the northern Gulf coast. It is probable that in each bay or section or 

 coast Mullet have peculiar habits as to time and manner of arrival, time and place of spawning, 

 and the general habits of old fish after spawning and young aft«r hatching. It is also likely that 

 their manner of spawning, feeding, etc., is the same everywhere. My own observations have been 

 chiefly made in Pensacola and Ghoctawhatchee Bays and Santa Eosa Sound, which take in fifty 

 miles of coast line. In this section, which I have called the Pensacola region, there is a spring 

 'run' of Mullet composed of varit)us sizes of young which are in part, no doubt, of the previous 

 3'ear's hatching. The first school of this run appears on the coast in April or in the first part of 

 May, and they continue to come for two or three weeks, when they are all inside and scattered 

 about the bay shores. These fish are very thin on their arrival, but rapidly fatten and grow on 

 the feeding grounds. Some of these contain spawn at first, and in some it is developed during 

 the summer. 



"In September and October there is a 'run' of large fish, which comes, as the young one does, 

 from the eastward, swimming at the surface of the water and making considerable commotion. Some 

 years there is but one large school in the 'run' and at others many small schools, and it is thought 

 that the fish are more abundant when they come in the latter form. At Choctawhatchee Inlet, 

 when the spawning grounds are near by, the fish come in with the flood tide and go out again with 

 the ebb tide; and at the Pensacola Inlet, when the spawning grounds are far away, they come into 

 the bay and stay until the operation of spawning is over. The spawn in this fall 'run' is fully 

 developed, and is deposited in October and November. The spawning grounds are in fresh or 

 brackish water at the heads of bayous, in rivers or heads of bays. The many bayous of Choctaw- 

 hatchee Bay are almost blocked up with spawning Mullet in October, and they are very abundant 

 at the head of Pensacola Bay near the mouths of fresh-water rivers at that time. Although I have 

 been in the bayous when Mullet were supposed to be spawning, i have not witnessed the operation, 



