Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/173

Rh of which I am able to express my belief that it usually selects for food nothing that has life; although it sometimes swallows the common sandworm. Its good success in escaping the hook commonly proceeds from its care not to swallow a particle of any large or hard substance, to avoid which it repeatedly receives the bait into its mouth, and rejects it; so that when hooked it is in the lips, from which the weight and struggles of the fish often deliver it. It is most readily taken with bait formed of the fat entrails of a fish, or cabbage boiled in broth.

"The Grey Mullets shed their spawn about Midsummer; and in August the young, then an inch long, are seen entering the fresh-water, keeping at some distance above the tide, but retiring as it recedes. The change and rechange from salt water to fresh seems necessary to their health, as I judge from having kept them in glass vessels."

The agility displayed by this fish in escaping from danger, and the sagacity which impels it to put its powers into requisition, were known to the ancients as well as to modern fishermen. The continental fishers often lose a whole shoal in the manner described by Mr. Couch, a single one leaping the net-line, and all the rest following like sheep at a fence-gap. To obviate such a disappointment they use in some parts of the Mediterranean a sort of double net, so formed that the exterior net shall receive those fishes that overleap the interior. Oppian long ago thus celebrated the prowess of this fish:—