

MALACOPTERYGII SUBRACHIATI. 249 



sinus, which penetrates into the thickness of both sides of the tail, 

 for the purpose of lodging a portion of the viscera. The natatory- 

 bladder is wanting, and they seldom quit the bottom." The cranium 

 is rendered an object of curiosity by this subversion, which throws 

 both orbits on one side; all the bones, however, common to other 

 genera, are found in it, but unequally proportioned. They are taken 

 along the coasts of almost all countries, and furnish a wholesome 

 and delicious article of food. 



Individuals are sometimes captured whose eyes are placed on the 

 side opposite to that in which they are generally seen, they are then 

 said to be contournes, or turned; others again have both sides of the 

 body coloured alike, when they are called doubles or doubled; it is 

 most generally the brown side which is thus reproduced, though it 

 sometimes happens to the white one. (I) We divide them as fol- 

 lows: 



Platessa., Cuv. 



A range of obtuse trenchant teeth in each jaw, and, generally, 

 teeth en paves in the pharyngeals; the dorsal extending no farther 

 than to above the upper eye, and leaving, as does the anal, a naked 

 interval between it and the caudal. The form of these fishes is rhom- 

 boidal, and most of them have their eyes on the right; they have 

 two or three small caeca. Several species are found in the seas of 

 Europe, such as 



P. platessa, L.; Bl., 42. (The Plaice.) Easily recognized by 

 six or seven tubercles, forming a line on the straight side of 

 its head, between the eyes, and by the pale yellow spots which 

 relieve the brown on the same side of the body. Its height is 

 but one third of its length. Its flesh is considered more tender 

 than that of any of this subgenus. (2) 



P. latuSy Cuv. (The Broad Plaice.) The same tubercles as 

 the vulgaris, but the body is only once and a half as long as it 

 is high. It is sometimes taken on the coast of France, though 

 rarely. 



P.flesus, L. ; BL, 44, and 50, under the name of PI. passer.(3) 



(1) The Hose-coloured Flounder, Shaw, IV, ii, pi. 43, is one of those in which 

 the white side is doubled. 



(2) It would appear that there is a very large Platessa found in the North, 

 which, in some respects, differs from that taken on the coast of France, and 

 chiefly in the spine, which, behind the anus, lies buried under the skin it is the 

 PI. borealis, Faber, Isis, torn. XXI, p. 868. 



(3) The PI. passer of Artedi and Linnaeus does not diflfer from the Turbot; that 

 of Bloch is only an old Flounder turned to the left. 



Vol. IL 2 G 



