GKEY MULLET. 
So strong also is this impulse of watchfulness against restraint^ 
that to avoid it the Mullet will encounter danger, even when 
the space enclosed is of considerable extent. In the port of 
Looe, in Cornwall, there is a salt-water mill-pool of thirteen 
acres that is enclosed on the side of the river by an embank- 
ment, and into which the tide flows through flood-gates that 
afford a ready passage for fish to the space within. When the 
tide begins to ebb the gates close of themselves, but even 
before this has happened the Mullets which have entered have 
been known to pass along the enclosed circuit within the bank, 
as if seeking the means of deliverance, and, finding no outlet, 
they have thrown themselves on the bank at the side to their 
own destruction. Even Mullets of exceedingly small size have 
been seen to throw themselves, head or tail foremost, over the 
head-line of a net, where it Avould have seemed much easier 
for them to have passed through a mesh; and so strong is 
this propensity to pass over an obstacle rather than through it, 
that examples of less than an inch in length have repeatedly 
thrown themselves over the side of a cup where the water was 
an inch below the brim. Fishermen, however, arc acquainted 
Avith a simple method, which, by deceiving the fish, is sufficient 
to prevent their taking a successful leap over the net. A thin 
layer of straAV is scattered over the surface to the breadth of 
a feAV feet within the head-line; and mistaking this for the 
obstacle itself, the fish exhausts its efforts on the wrong 
object, and remains a prisoner still. 
Risso describes another mode of taking this fish, by attracting 
it with a light, and then darting at it a spear or trident, — 
perhaps the crossed trident, or such as by sailors in England 
is termed the grains; but it scarcely appears successful Avith 
us, although ingeniously contrived for the purpose. 
But a more remarkable and singular method of taking Mullets 
is mentioned by ancient writers, although with some variation 
as regards the particular species of Mullet. Pliny (B. 9, C. 25 ) 
refers to it as simply the Mugil, the salacious properties of 
Avhich render them so unguarded, that in Phoenicia, and also 
in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, at the time of coupling, 
Avhich is about midsummer, and near the influence of fresh 
Avater, an individual of either sex, which Avas taken out of 
the preserved pond, Avas fastened to a long line that was 
