MUGILOIDE.E. 87 



MUGILOIDEiE. 



The Linnean genus Mugil exhibits so many peculiarities of organization, that 

 Cuvier thinks it ought to be considered as a distinct family. The fish composing 

 it have a nearly cyliDdrical form, large scales, two distinct dorsals, of which the 

 foremost contains only five spinous rays, and ventrals situated a little posterior to 

 the pectorals. The gill-rays are only six in number, the head is slightly depressed, 

 and is protected by large scales or polygonal plates, the snout is very short, and 

 the orifice of the mouth is transverse, with a re-entering angle formed by a keel- 

 like eminence of the lower jaw, fitted to a corresponding depression on the upper 

 one. The teeth are extremely fine, and often nearly imperceptible, but the pha- 

 ryngeal bones are much developed, and give to the entrance of the oesophagus the 

 form of an angular slit, resembling the orifice of the mouth, through which liquids, 

 or very attenuated food, alone can pass. The stomach is muscular like the gizzard 

 of a fowl, the pyloric ceeca are few in number, and the intestine is long and doubled 

 upon itself. The Mullets are esteemed to be fish of an excellent flavour. They 

 enter bays and the mouths of rivers in large shoals, and have the habit of leaping 

 high out of the water. Six species are noticed in the Regne Animal, as inhabit- 

 ants of the European seas : viz., 31. auratus, saltator, and labeo, proper to the 

 Mediterranean ; M. capito and chelo, common to that sea and the Norlh Atlantic ; 

 and 31. cephalus, likewise found in the Mediterranean, but ranging through the 

 African Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, and existing also in the Red Sea, if 

 it be the same species with the 31. our of Forskal, as is most probably the case. 

 Five or six species belong to America, which have been confounded by authors 

 under the name of M. albula. One of them, M. lineatus, frequents the coasts of 

 the United States, where it attains the weight of two pounds and a half. Many 

 species exist in the Indian Ocean, and one was observed in the harbour of Mazatlan, 

 South California, by the naturalists of Captain Beechey's expedition. 



The Tetragonurus Cuvieri (Rossi), a fish inhabiting the greatest depths of 

 the Mediterranean, is an isolated species, Avhich appears to be the only indication 

 of a peculiar family. It derives its name from two salient ridges on each side of 

 the tail, and in its structure it partly resembles the Mugiloideee, and partly the 

 Scomberoideee, 



