THE BASS, BREAMS, AND RED MULLET 121 



is regularly caught in the Menai Strait and in the Liverpool 

 district. In Irish waters it is also, with few exceptions, con- 

 fined to the southern portion of the island. Apart from this 

 preference for the southern waters, the bass may be regarded 

 as more plentiful on our west than on our east coast. It is 

 very common in most parts of the Mediterranean, in which -sea 

 the writer has caught it at Gibraltar, Tangier, Leghorn, Naples, 

 and Palermo, and has met with it in almost every fish-market 

 visited, including those of Marseilles and Algiers. Its claim to 

 rank as a table fish is variously accepted. As a general rule, it 

 may be said that while the smaller bass, of a pound weight or 

 less, are agreeable eating, the fish of several pounds are woolly 

 and insipid to the taste. The bass spawns apparently in July 

 and August and deposits floating eggs. 



Sparidae 



The Sea-Breams 



There is also something obviously perch-like about the Sea- 

 breams, which should not be confused with the cyprinoid 

 breams of our lakes and rivers. The river-bream is a green 

 and yellow fish with some red on the fins and no spines in the 

 dorsal. The sea-breams are blue or red and silver, with sharp 

 spines in the fins ; they dwell in shoals among the rocks, and, 

 as remarked of the bass, fish of a " class " shoal in company. 

 This holds good both north and south of the Equator ; and in 

 Australia, as at home, there are three names for three diflFerent 

 stages of the red bream, though the precise stage to which each 

 should apply seems variable in both countries. At Plymouth 

 the smallest red bream is called " chad," the largest is a bream, 

 and the intervening stage a " ballard " ; at Sydney these three 

 ages of the red bream are respectively " red brim," " squire," 

 and *' snapper." It is not here claimed that the fish are speci- 

 fically identical in the Atlantic and Pacific, but the younger 

 stages are not easily distinguished by the fisherman, particularly 



