GREY MULLET. 135 



intestine is long and much convoluted. The fishes live on the 

 small organisms contained in the mud and sand; they feed in 

 large parties or schools on the bottom in quiet water with the 

 head downward ; the food is sifted in the mouth and the mud and 

 sand rejected. The exhibited specimen of Grey Mullet, Mugil 

 capito, 457, is the commonest of the three species found off the 

 British coasts. All Grey Mullets are valued as food, those taken 

 from fresh water particularly so. 



In Honolulu they have a very ingenious plan of rearing the 

 Grey Mullet in Mullet-ponds. Across an arm of the sea is built 

 a stone wall with very numerous small openings between the stones. 

 Through these openings the young Mullets enter, and they 

 rapidly fatten on the abundant algal and other vegetation of the 

 creek, and become too big to get back through the holes to the 

 open sea. The plan is not without its drawbacks, however, for 

 young Barracudas [Sphyrcena, e. g. 460) enter the creek through 

 the stone wall in pursuit of the young Mullet and, when inside, 

 feed on the Mullet, and grow too large to get out again. 



The Polynemidce or Thread-fins (459) are allied to the Grey Thread- 

 Mullets. Like them they are of a bluish silvery colour; their eyes fin - 

 are covered with a filmy skin ; the scales, however, are more or 

 less ctenoid, and the lowest fin-rays of the pectoral fin are separated 

 by an interval from the rest of the fin and consist of long free 

 filaments, which are organs of touch, and can be moved in- 

 dependently of the functioning fins themselves. In some the 

 filaments are twice as long as the body of the fish. The possession 

 of these tactile filaments is connected with the partiality of the 

 fishes for turbid water. Some of the fishes of this family grow to 

 a length of four feet. From the air-bladder of some of the Indian 

 species a good quality of isinglass is obtained (1186, Cabinet- 

 case 28). 



The Chiasmodontidse, which are represented in the exhibited Chias- 

 series by Chiasmodon nigrum (978, Cabinet-case 44, and fig. 7, 

 p. 18), are fishes of the depths of the mid- Atlantic, with soft flesh and 

 feeble spines, reduced scales and reduced gill-covers. The dentition 

 is powerful, and some of the front teeth are more or less hinged, so 

 as to be capable of being bent back towards the throat. Of the 

 few specimens known most have been found floating dead on the 



