GRAY MULLETS. 
331 
eies, though it is highly probable that many of them 
are species only in name. 
From olden times the genus lias been well known 
in Mediterranean countries. Aristotle, who calls the 
genus xsGTQebg, gives the names of perhaps four or five 
species, at least two or three, viz. /sAojV (npooysiog), 
uv'ico v (jisquucq) and xstpaXog". The Romans called the 
genus Mugil * 1 * * * ', and it was under this name that it was 
introduced by ArtedT into modern ichthyology. 
The Gray Mullets have gained great prominence 
from the excellent flavour of their flesh and their pecu- 
liar manner of life. They are gregarious, and we have 
many telling observations of their love of society. In 
search of food they approach the coast in shoals, espe- 
cially where the bottom is dead, i. e. full of decompos- 
ing materials, for it is here they find food in greatest 
abundance, or they may even ascend the rivers. In the 
River Loire they have been caught above SaumuG, and 
they formerly entered the River Somme in May, says 
Blanchard 6 , in such enormous shoals that the. river for 
clays was full of them; but since the opening of the canal 
between Abbeville and the sea, they have deserted this 
river, according to Marcotte. These migrations to 
brackish or fresh water have given rise, in many places, 
to important fisheries for the Gray Mullets. “Although 
Mullets,’ says Brown-Goode / , “are abundant almost 
everywhere, it is probable that no stretches of seacoast 
in the world are so bountifully supplied with them as 
those of our own Southern Atlantic and Gulf states, 
with their broad margin of partially or entirely land- 
locked brackish water and the numerous estuaries and 
broad river mouths.’ Without any other means of de- 
fence, and pursued as they are, not only by man, but 
by numbers of fishes of prey and seabirds, they escape 
by the extraordinary quickness and strength of their 
movements. They have always been notorious for their 
powers of leaping over or forcing their way under the 
“ The zoological system of Aristotle must naturally not be 
writings vJcpaXog is a species of VXOTQE vg, in other passages /eXwv : 
a shore-fish, and the latter TteQaiag, i. e. a form living outside the a 
b Charleton derives this word from mucus (for the fish, acci 
traction of multum cigilis. 
c Gen. Pise., p. 32. In the Appendix to Syn. Pise. Artedi 
authority of Aristotle, Gaza, Rondelet and Gesner. 
d Duilamel, Traite des peches , II part., VI sect., p. 144. 
e Poiss. d’ eau douce de la France , p. 251. 
I Fisher, a. Fisher. Ind. U. S., Sect. I, p. 450. 
( J Naturg. v. Sardinien , Th. 3 (Transl., Leipsic 1784), p. 20 
h Fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. I, p. 229. 
1 Fish. Brit. Isl., vol. Ill, p. 12. 
nets and seines with which the fishermen have barred 
their path or surrounded them. The Neapolitan fisher- 
men described to Cetti g four kinds of Gray Mullets: 
“The first, Cefalo , is the largest and has the largest 
head. The second, Ossone , with more pointed head, 
takes only one jump when it leaps. The third Tiimula 
or Lisa , forms a. circle with its tail when it leaps, the 
head being the centre of the circle. The fourth, Con- 
cadita , attains a weight of more than two pounds. When 
it. leaps out of the water, it skims the surface like the 
small flat stones thrown by children in the game of 
‘clucks and drakes’.” “At Mevagissey, says Day 7 ', “a 
shoal entered the harbour, and having been perceived, 
the entrance was at once barred by nets. The fish first 
tried to jump over, but a. net was raised so as to bar 
that route. The water was very clear, and the fish 
were seen 1o swim round and round, to try to find an 
exit. Next they attempted to get under the foot rope: 
at last one made a push, but became meshed. When 
this was done, another came and laid (sic) beside it, 
and nothing could drive it away. In short, all escaped 
but these two.” 
The method resorted to by the Gray Mullets of 
seeking escape by jumping over the net is instinctive, 
and this instinct, like others, is the outcome of here- 
ditary and growing habit. “Even Mullets of extremely 
small size,’ writes Couch', “have been seen to throw 
themselves, head or tail foremost, over the head line 
of a net, where it would have seemed much easier for 
them to have passed through a mesh.” 
There are many instances related of the co-opera- 
tion of individuals in a shoal, in the attempt to escape 
from their prison; and when only one fish has shown 
the way, the others instantly follow. The same remark 
also applies, however, to other fishes when in shoals; 
and it is hardly probable that the Mullets possess the 
power of calculating or estimating the nature of the 
Iged by the requirements of modern times. In some passages of his 
I f. iviftov are species of vfcpctXog, the former being ngoGyeiog , i. e. 
rehipelago or far out at sea. 
Dialing to Aristotle, eats its own slime); Isidorus regards it as a con- 
adopted a genus Chelon , with species chelo and myxo , but only on the 
