SCIENCE OF FLAT-FISH, OR SOLES AND TITRBOT. 115 



likely to be observed (and eaten) if his back is dark and his under-sur- 

 face white and silvery. 



Albino soles are far rarer than doubles, and seldom occur except 

 in very young and foolish specimens. Naturally an albino forms an 

 exceptionally sure mark for his enemies to hawk at, and he is there- 

 fore usually devoured at an early stage of his unhappy existence, be- 

 fore he has time to develop properly into a good specimen. For the 

 same reason adult white rabbits are very rare in the wild state, because 

 they form such excellent targets for owls in their early infancy. Rab- 

 bits, when tamed, as we all know, tend to " sport " in color to a sur- 

 prising extent ; but this tendency is repressed in the wild condition 

 by the selective action of the common owl, which promptly picks off 

 every rabbit that does not harmonize well in the dusk of evening with 

 the bracken and furze among whose stalks it feeds. 



All the flat-fish are carnivorous. They live chiefly off cockles and 

 other mollusks, off lugs, and lob-worms, or off small shrimp-like creat- 

 ures and other crustaceans. In summer-time soles resort to banks and 

 shallow spots near the mouths of rivers to deposit their spawn. They 

 are obliged to do this in shallow waters, because, like most other fish, 

 they are very unnatural mothers, and leave the sun to do the whole 

 work of hatching for them. To be sure, there are some few right- 

 minded fish which take a proper view of their parental responsibilities, 

 such as the pipe-fishes, which carry about their unhatched eggs in a 

 bag, sometimes borne by the affectionate mother, but oftener still by 

 the good father, a perfect model to his human confreres. Or again, 

 the familiar little stickleback, who builds a regular nest for the recep- 

 tion of the spawn, and positively sits upon it like a hen, at the same 

 time waving his fins vigorously backward and forward so as to keep 

 up a good supply of oxygen. But soles and most other fish consider 

 that their parental duties are quite at an end as soon as they have de- 

 posited their spawn in safety on a convenient sunny shallow. 



This fact produces a sort of annual migration among the soles and 

 other flat-fish. In spring, when all nature is beginning to wake up 

 from its winter sleep, the soles seek the shoal water, which forms their 

 spawning-ground ; and, therefore, in April, May, June, and July, the 

 British sole is chiefly trolled for off the Dogger Bank and the other 

 great submerged flats of the North Sea. But when November comes 

 on again the soles once more retire for the season into winter quarters 

 in the deep water for the purpose of hibernating during the foodless 

 period. The North Sea soles (in whose habits and manners the Lon- 

 don public is most profoundly interested) generally resort for their 

 long snooze to a deep depression known as the Silver Pits, lying close 

 beside the Dogger Bank. These Silver Pits are so called because 

 when they were first discovered (about the year 1843) they formed a 

 sort of Big Bonanza for the lucky fishermen who originally resorted 

 to them. There the soles lay, huddled together for the sake of warmth, 



