THE BASS, BREAMS, AND RED MULLET 127 



the summer months, he would meet with success. The 

 already beautiful pink of the large scales during life is inten- 

 sified by the fishermen, who remove them before rigor mortis 

 has set in, though not invariably, as formerly thought, while 

 the fish still lives. 



It is a shore-haunting fish, of gregarious habits, and it feeds 

 on the bottom. The tank-house of the Plymouth Laboratory 

 generally has a very attractive shoal of these fish, and 

 Cunningham has aptly compared their movements in the 

 water to that of a flock of birds in a field, alternately soaring 

 to the higher levels, then settling down and seeking for food. 

 This they do by turning over the gravel with their stiff and 

 sensitive barbels, which are tucked out of the way when the 

 fish are exercising themselves in mid-water, as gulls stow 

 away their legs when flying high. 



The spawning of the surmullet has been studied by 

 Italian biologists, but not, so far, by our own. Rafiaele 

 found the fish spawn in the Naples Aquarium in early 

 spring, the eggs being transparent and floating on the water. 

 The larvae are hatched out in three or four days, and have 

 a curious appearance, from the position of the yolk, which 

 protrudes in front in a manner that Mcintosh likens to 

 the prow of a vessel. By the end of summer the little red 

 mullet had their barbel, but were still silvery, and had not 

 assumed the pink livery of their later life. Their head 

 was, with its barbel, more like that of a cod, though the 

 characteristic form of head in the adult fish was not long 

 in appearing. 



With reference to the relations of the plain and striped 

 forms, Gcinther apparently follows Gronovius in regarding 

 the latter as the female, and the former as the male, of one 

 and the same species ; and it is somewhat curious that, with 

 the analogy of the male and female of Callionymus, they 

 should not have accepted the more general rule, and assigned 

 male sex to the more ornate form. What ground Dr. Gtlnther 



