Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/169

Rh oily substances floating on the sea, or to the softer parts of aquatic vegetation. The ancients considered it as the most innocent of fishes, and this opinion has been confirmed by that of one of our best ichthyologists, Mr. Couch. Yet the observations of other naturalists reveal a very different truth. Mr. W. Thompson, the able historian of Irish zoology, has remarked, after an examination of many individuals of the species common in Belfast Bay (apparently Mugil chelo), that they presented many hundred-fold greater destruction of animal life than he had ever witnessed on a similar inspection of the food of any bird or fish. From the stomach of a single individual he took as many univalve and bivalve mollusca as would fill a large sized breakfast cup; so that one of these stomachs might justly be regarded as quite a store-house to a conchologist.

The characters already enumerated as distinguishing the Family may be considered as those of this genus: the head is covered on the top with hard bony plates, on the sides with compact scales, which conceal the divisions of the gill-covers; the pectorals are pointed; the sides of the tail are not armed with projecting ridges.

Two species are common on the coasts of these islands, the Common Grey Mullet (Mugil capito, .) and the Thick-lipped Mullet (M, chelo, .) They very closely resemble each other, but are distinguished by small anatomical