-,2 4 AMERICAN FISHES. 



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young Smooth Flounder may be taken in summer on the beaches. The 

 largest females observed weighed twenty-three ounces, the weight of the 

 spawn being seven ounces. Too little attention has hitherto been paid to 

 this fish, but it seems more than probable that in the future it will greatly 

 increase in favor. 



The Greenland Turbot, Platysomatichthys hippoglossoidcs, though never 

 occurring in our inshore waters, is found on the off-shore banks, as far 

 south as George's Bank, and a certain quantity of them is usually brought 

 to New York in winter. It is emphatically an arctic species, being 

 abundant on the coast of Greenland, often found at Holsteinborg and 

 beyond, and along this entire coast very eagerly sought by the natives. 

 The Eskimo name is " Kalleraglik," and the fish is also known as "Little 

 Halibut." In Gunther's work on " The Fishes of the British Museum," 

 he has confused this species with the true Halibut, making it appear that 

 only the former is to be found on the coast of North America. In North- 

 ern Greenland the Turbot is found only at very great depths, and is fished 

 for, in water of three hundred and fifty to three hundred and eighty fath- 

 oms, through holes in the ice, over certain banks in Omenak Fiord and 

 at the mouth of the Jacob's-Haven ice-fiord which is also packed with 

 great ice-floes. It is said to be found only in the ice-fiords and between 

 the great ice-fields, and there only in the coldest months of the year. 



In South Greenland they are taken on the oceanic banks at a depth of 

 sixty to one hundred and eighty fathoms, though there considered to be 

 not so abundant as in North Greenland. In Fortune Bay, Newfoundland, 

 according to Captains G. Johnson and A. Leighton, of Gloucester, they 

 are very abundant in sixty to three hundred fathoms, and are caught chiefly 

 in winter. They are also obtained by the Gloucester halibut fleet on the 

 outer edge of the oceanic banks, in two hundred and fifty to three hundred 

 fathoms of water. 



Their habits are not at all well understood, but it would appear from the 

 statement of several experienced fisherman, whom I have questioned, that 

 they occur on the very edge of the continental slope in deeper water than 

 the true Halibut, in fact in places where the slope is so ne'arly perpendi- 

 cular that the Halibut can hardly hold their places on the bottom. This 

 species is more symmetrical than any other of the family on our coast, and, 

 moreover, is colored upon both sides of the body — a fact which indicates 

 that its movements are more like those of the ordinary symmetrical fishes 

 and that it can rest with the body in a vertical attitude. 



