3 2S AMERICAN FISHES. 



a greater length than six inches, and, though edible, is never eaten, and 

 it must be regarded as of extremely small importance. There are also two 

 or three other fishes belonging to this family in our Southern waters which 

 are insignificant in size and of no importance whatever. 



Aphoristia atricauda is a very small species of Sole, the only genuine 

 representative of the European Sole on our Pacific coast. It reaches a 

 length of six inches, and is occasionally taken in San Diego Bay. It has 

 no economic value. 



Turbot and Sole in America. — A Philadelphia writer has lately tried 

 in the newspapers to revive the long-obsolete belief that the Turbot and 

 Sole of Europe occur on our coast. Although he has never seen them 

 himself, and fails to bring forward evidence that any one else has seen 

 them, he insists that they occur in the greatest abundance in New Jersey, 

 particularly in the vicinity of Atlantic, "and doubtless all along the At- 

 lantic coast from Portsmouth, N. H., to Wilmington, S. C." {sic) He 

 upbraids the American public for their incredulity, though this does not 

 surprise him so much when he calls to mind that "our Government Fish 

 Commissoner has actually contemplated sending a steamer to English 

 waters to procure turbot-seed to plant along our shores." He would not 

 be surprised if incredulity were to continue longer " under such official 

 indorsement." He accounts for the ignorance regarding them by the 

 theory that the English trawl-net is unknown in America, and that our 

 fishermen would not know how to catch such fish if they were aware of 

 their presence, and have not become aware of their presence because they 

 have no means of catching them. He intimates that he is preparing to 

 form a company for the purpose of developing a turbot fishery upon our 

 coast; an enterprise "in which but little will be risked, and the results 

 will be a surprise to all." He closed one of his letters to a New York 

 journal with the appeal : " I trust that you will not let this question sub- 

 side, but persist in calling attention to it until we do away with the ex- 

 traordinary anomaly of this enlightened nation being within reach of 

 treasure that for more than a century they have been unaware of and have 

 remained persistently blind to." 



All this is very entertaining, and furnishes a neat text for a few remarks 

 on the history of this belief, as well as an opportunity for demonstrating 

 to the public a fact which has for forty years or more been known to ich- 

 thyologists, that the Turbot and the Sole never have been seen on the 



