62 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
genera, are rather weak on the jaws, generally cylin- 
drical and conical only at the tip or even obtuse. But 
in some forms we find in the front of the palate, on 
the vomer, distinct patches of short but strong molar 
teeth, which remind one of the jaw-molars so common 
in the preceding family. Furthermore, the granulation 
of the surface of the scales, and the imperfect deve- 
lopment of the teeth at their margin, as well as the 
large, high preorbital bones, also call to mind the pre- 
ceding family. There is a considerable difference in 
the pyloric appendages, however, which in most of the 
Mullidce are very numerous and sometimes surrounded 
by a thick coating of fat". The air-bladder, too, in 
contrast to that of the preceding family, is so rudi- 
mentary, in the true Mullets at least, that it is often 
overlooked h . 
The Mullets are really ground swimmers, which 
in an oozy, muddy or loose, sandy bottom root up 
their food with the snout. Their food consists of 
crustaceans, worms and mollusks, in search of which 
they make use of the sensory organs we have just de- 
scribed. Alga?, however, also form a part of their diet. 
It is remarkable that, just as they usually live at the 
bottom, we find the caudal fin-rays in the Mullets re- 
duced to the same number as in the Anomalopterous 
Acanthopterygians, and to some degree justifying the 
former procedure of uniting" into one the genera Mullus 
and Trigig. The Mullets, however, are migratory fishes, 
at certain times of the year at least to be met with 
nearer the surface, when they are taken in drift-nets 
even in the open sea; and their resemblance to the 
preceding family is too strong for us to remove them 
far from the group of the Perches in our system. 
The family belongs principally to the tropic seas, 
but also to the temperate, and includes about 40 
known species, so slightly different in form that 
they may well be incorporated in one, single genus, 
the Linnean 
Genus MULLUS. 
The European representative of this genus has been 
accepted by Cuvier as the type of a separate subgenus 
Mullus , because the teeth on the intermaxillary hones, 
most of them at least , disappear until age. As we have 
remarked above, this subgenus is characterized, though 
not exclusively, by its palatine teeth, which form an 
oblong patch on the anterior part of the vomer, pointed 
posteriorly and divided into two by a longitudinal 
groove. The back of the snout is without scales, the 
operculum without spines and the air-bladder extreme- 
ly small. 
The subgenus includes only one species, 
THE RED MULLET. 
MULLUS BARBATUS. 
Plate IV, fig. 1. 
Colouring of the body red , shading on the hack into brown , on the belly into white with or without longitudinal, 
yellow streaks. 
R. hr. 4(3); D. 8(7)/^; A. |; P. 2 + 15(14); V. * ; C. x + 
o fa 5 
2 
13(12) + x; L. lat. 36—40; L. tr. d + 1. 
6(5) 
Syn. TqiyXa, Aeistot. ; Tglylr], tElian.; Mullus, Ovid. Cett. ; 
Mulus , Isidok. (vide Artedi). 
Mullus minor et major , Salvian., Aquat. anim. Hist., Romae 
1554, fol. 235, cett. 
“ According to Cuvier (1. c. p. 452; — after Reynaud?), however, Upeneus tceniopterus from Ceylon has only two pyloric appendages. 
6 Cf. however Costa, Fn. Nap., Pesci , Triglia (text) and Plate IX. Also in Upeneus Vlamingii and Up. cinnabarinus (Cuv., 1. c., 
pp. 454 and 475), whereas the air-bladder is large in Up. tceniopterus, Up. flavolineatus, Up. zeylonicus and Up. maculatus (Cuv., 1. e., pp. 
452, 458, 459 and 480). 
c In Artedi for example. 
d Vertically from the insertion of the ventral fins. 
