SURMULLET. 
211 
been remarked that they have been found to assemble in 
larger numbers after a great battle at sea. Happily it is out 
of our power to confirm or deny this last alleged fact; but 
an ins2)ection of the mouth of this fish, so small and toothless, 
renders it incredible that at any time the human body or 
any large object should be the subject of its appetite. That 
it will take a hook, however, is familiarly known, although 
this does not appear to be usual until the decline of summer, 
when it enters harboims and is fished for from rocks and piers. 
The Surmullet is well furnished for searching out its prey 
by the possession of a pair of barbs, which hang below the 
middle of its lower jaw, and are endued with quick powers 
of sensation, residhig in nerves, one in each of the pah, which 
pass along their outer side, and, next to the nerves of 
vision, are the largest in the body. The barbs themselves are 
so jrlaced, that when the fish rests upon the ground or passes 
along, they can be lifted u]p and hid between the bones of 
the gills; but they are in such a manner attached to a frame- 
work of bones separate from the jaws, but united to them by 
ligament at one end, and are acted on by muscles of such 
considerable jiower, as to be capable of acting in every 
direction in the examination of neighbourhig objects. 
Ancient writers were so fully jiersuaded of its producing 
spawn three times in the course of a year, that they gave it 
the name of Trigld from that circumstance; which name has, 
however, in modern times been bestowed on another genus of 
fishes; and they believed the selected place to be near the 
mouths of large rivers. We see, however, but little signs of 
its breeduig on our coasts. 
The Smunullet is now, as it ever has been, an object of 
enquiry to those who indulge in the luxuries of the table, 
so that it became a proverb, that those who caught it never 
knew the taste of it; but to obtain it in its perfection it 
ought to be in the hands of the cook within a few hours after 
it has been taken from the water. The ancients were aware 
of this, and it was something more than curiosity which led 
the Romans to produce the living fishes on the table for the 
insjjoction of the guests, before they delivered them to the 
cook. Seneca tells us they were scarcely valued unless they 
had died in the presence of the guests. Those which with us 
