Fishes . ed in advance, feeling the way. Testing the bottom 565 566 Surmullets, Croakers, etc. with their feelers, these fishes creep over the floor of shallowwaters, seeking their food. The numerous species are all very much alike in form, andthe current genera are separated by details of the arrangementof the teeth. But few are found outside the tropics. The surmullet or red mullet of Europe, Mullus barbatits,is the most famous species, placed by the Romans above allother fishes unless it be the scarus, Sparisoma cretense. Fromthe satirical poets we learn that enormous prices were paidfor a
Fishes . ed in advance, feeling the way. Testing the bottom 565 566 Surmullets, Croakers, etc. with their feelers, these fishes creep over the floor of shallowwaters, seeking their food. The numerous species are all very much alike in form, andthe current genera are separated by details of the arrangementof the teeth. But few are found outside the tropics. The surmullet or red mullet of Europe, Mullus barbatits,is the most famous species, placed by the Romans above allother fishes unless it be the scarus, Sparisoma cretense. Fromthe satirical poets we learn that enormous prices were paidfor a fine fish, and it was the fashion to bring the fish into thedining-room and exhibit it alive before the assembled guests,so that they might gloat over the brilliant and changing colorsduring the death-agonies. It is red in life, and when thescales are removed, the color is much brighter. It is an excellent fish, tender and rich, but nowhere so extrav-agantly valued to-day as was formerly the case in Via. 459.—Golden Surmullet, Mullus auratus Jordan it Hole, Mass. Mullus snrmtUetus is a second European species, scarcely differ-ent from Mullus barbatus. Equally excellent as food and larger in size are two Polyne-sian species known as kumu and munu {Pseudupeneus porphyrcnsand Pseudupeneus bijasciatus). Midlus auratus is a small sur-mullet occasionally taken off our Atlantic coast, but in deeperwater than that frequented by the European species. Pseu-dupeneus maculatus is the red goatfish or salmonete, commonfrom Florida to Brazil, as is also the yellow goatfish, Pseudu- \ -s^
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