HILL — -FISH-POISONS. 
235 
flesh prone to rapid decomposition. Mackerel, salmon^ 
trout, and herrings are examples. On the contrary, those 
fish that live near the bottom of the water ( ‘or feed on the 
ground’) have a low standard of respiration, a high degree 
of muscular irritability, and less necessity for oxygen, — - 
they sustain life long after they are taken out of water, 
and their flesh remains good for several days.— Carp, tench, 
eels, the different sorts of skate, and all the flat-fish, may 
he quoted as instances of this character.” — (Yarrell’s Intro- 
duction to his History of British Fishes). All our surface 
swimmers die and decompose soon, while our ground-fish, 
as in the Eliotris or mud-fish, have the power of endurance 
more manifested as a quality of their organisation. 
It should be remarked that the mullets being vegetable 
feeders, or fishes taking animal food in a state of macera- 
tion or solution on the unctuous ooze of river-beds, are at 
all times wholesome fishes. Their sensitive lips, with cili- 
ary fringes, hardly fit them for taking aliment of any sub- 
stance harder than pulp ; hence it is that in England they 
bait for them with the pith of cabbage boiled in fat, and 
we entice them with avocado pear, and the soft portions of 
wild banana. 
The mud fishes, whether described under the name of 
Gobius, Eliotris, or Philypnus, are all fishes of the most 
esteemed character for the table. “ Ce sont, en general,” 
says Valenciennes in describing the Eliotris, “ un groupe 
des Gobioides a ventrales separes,” the true gobies, as in 
our sand-fishes, having the ventral fins united like a cup, 
the difference between sand and mudfi-shes,— “ ce sont, 
en general, des poissons paresseux, qui se tiennent tran- 
quillement dans les vases ou dans des trous de rochers. La 
