104 
ACANTHOPTERYGII. 
half the depth, and in one of 10 inches is as 1 to 2|. Owing to [the species 
varying very considerably in depth, as elsewhere shown, this must necessarily 
be a very uncertain character.” 
Although the period stated (from the middle of March to the begin- 
ning of October) is the usual time of capture in Belfast Bay, I have occa- 
sionally seen this fish in the market here in every month of the year. 
During the winter season, they have been brought in fine condition from 
Cushendall and Glenarm with salmon, of which a very few are there taken 
in the sea. 
Food of the Mullet. — The stomachs of a few mullets from Portaferry, 
opened by Dr. Drummond, 4th August, 1838, were filled with minute 
larvae, of which he informs me some were alive. 
23rd October, 1838. — The stomachs and intestines of six mullets from 
Donaghadee, were filled with a minute Asperococcus, like A.pusillis. Some 
small pieces of other Algae occurred, as one specimen of JEnteromorpha 
compressa will show. That with the Asperococcus I have preserved on glass. 
Larvae from stomach of mullet taken at Portaferry, were 2 and 2^ lines 
long; 12 joints in body; head brown ; body colourless, except centre, 
which is dark. 
Of four specimens obtained at Donaghadee on 11th Oct., 1838, one 
contained ova, which, though minute, were apparent to the naked eye ; 
another showed them hardly developed, and milt apparent to the unas- 
sisted eye was in one of the males. The stomachs of two were empty ; 
those of the other two filled entirely with a minute Asperococcus apparent 
to the naked eye. I got Dr. Drummond to put some of it under his micro- 
scope, which proved the plant to be of this genus ; the size of specimens 
was generally about half an inch in length. The lineated appearance ex- 
tended in these fish to the ventral profile, as Donovan represents. 
A. H. Haliday, Esq., after examining, at my request, a number of larvae 
taken from the stomach of a mullet in the month of November, favoured 
me with the following remarks : — 
“ I have examined the larvae found in the mullet’s stomach. They 
seem to be all of one sort, but from the difference of size are evidently in 
various stages of growth, and perhaps none of them full grown. The 
multitudes of them found favour the conclusion, of which I have scarcely 
a doubt from their form, that they belong to some species of the genus 
Chironomus, several of which occur in the greatest profusion on our sea- 
coasts. On comparison with the larvae of Ch. plumosus, L. (the common 
red worm of ditches) the chief difference is in the form of the posterior 
extremity as follows : in place of two long and divaricated branches of the 
last segment with four shorter-pointed processes between them in pairs 
and the spiracles above their origifi, prolonged into two slender tapering 
tubes, crowned with a whorl of fine hairs (in Ch. plumosus ), I observe 
in these only a single cylindric false leg inclined downwards with a wart 
at its base on each side, including the spiracle : but this difference is no 
more than we may admit as specific, since we know the terrestrial larvae 
of other species of this genus to be totally deprived of these appendages 
of the posterior extremity. The larvae of the other genera in this family 
( Chironomidcc ), even those of Ceratopogon, which are least remote, are 
more complex in their external structure : and among those of the rer 
maining Nemocera, destitute of lateral spiracles, I know none which have 
much resemblance to these. 
“ The larvae in the families Bibionidce, Scutopsidcc , Myretophilidce, and 
Cecidomidce having the lateral spiracles, are out of the question.” 
