i86 SALT-WATER FISHES 



hook, the mullet are constantly taken on the rod, and in some 

 parts they are speared as they come to the surface to feed. 

 It would appear as if they are not alarmed by steam traffic, 

 for the writer once, in the summer of 1899, caught two in the 

 course of five minutes over the side of a steamer off Mogador 

 Island, while the anchors were coming up and numerous small 

 craft were alongside. This experience was strangely at variance 

 with the rule that anglers formerly observed, of rowing up to 

 these fish with muffled oars for fear of sending them to the 

 bottom ; but it should be added that the two referred to were 

 only small of their kind, and larger examples might more 

 easily have been disturbed. 



The grey mullet of the Arun are noted for their great 

 size and excellent flavour, though they are rarely in these 

 days caught as far up as Arundel, as was formerly the case. 

 The east works of the Littlehampton piers are the favourite 

 spot for taking Arun mullet to-day, and there are resident 

 enthusiasts who fish for them at daybreak throughout the 

 summer months. The grey mullet must, moreover, be a 

 more migratory fish than has been generally described, for 

 nothing is seen of these Arun muUet before May or after 

 October. The artificial culture of grey mullet in inland ponds 

 and reservoirs has had many advocates, but Cunningham ex- 

 presses the doubt whether the common marine form would 

 spawn and develop in such surroundings. 



The egg is of the floating kind, and has a simple yolk 

 with a single oil-globule. Cunningham figures an advanced 

 larval mullet, rather over \ in., which he obtained in the 

 month of May from the late Matthias Dunn. There were 

 no fin-rays, with the exception of a it^^ in the tail. Very 

 young mullet of an inch or rather less have been caught at 

 the surface in Plymouth Sound in July and August and fed 

 at the Laboratory, but their growth in captivity can scarcely 

 be described as rapid, since they only trebled their length in 

 a twelvemonth. Whether this meagre rate of growth can,, 



