It is a must excellent food fish, the Mesh being tender. 

 savory and delicious. It occurs in abundance from San Fran- 

 cisco north, and along the Asiatic coast. Being a shallow 

 water fish, it often appears in the estuaries and in the rivers. 



It is not a large fish, its average weight being about 10 

 to 12 pounds, yet it furnishes about fifty per cent, of the total 

 flounders taken. 



The flounders are said to be quite gamy, affording no little 

 sport in the landing of the larger specimens. Their bite is the 

 slightest nibbles, then a start, a rush, a darting to and fro, 

 then heavy surging in its efforts to escape characterize the 

 conduct of the "sockdolliger" of the Atlantic. 



A Fossil Flounder. 



Preliminary Notes. Part I. To lie named in my next paper. 



Fossil specimens of the flounder are very rare, and to find 

 one such as is figured here is a very pleasant surprise. This 

 specimen was found near Lompoc, Santa Barbara county, in 

 the diatomacious earth of the .Miocene formation.* 



This was a fish greatly compressed, having eyes and color 

 upon the righf side, the dorsal fin continuing from in front of 

 the eyes to near the caudal, and a corresponding ventral fin. 

 Only an imprint of the fish remained to tell its story. 



This interesting 1 specimen presents quite a number of fea- 

 tures which place it as an earlier branch of the tree of animal 

 development than that of the halibuts and flounders, fndeecl, 

 there are strong suggestions that this is a generalized type 

 from which these two have sprung and thus forms a connect- 

 ing link between them and lower forms. 



If Miocene formation is the proper designation for the 

 diatomaceous rocks in which this fish was found, then while 

 the shales upon which much of Los Angeles rests were form- 

 ing in the sea, the fishes of this type, the best flounders to this 

 time, were swimming over the diatomaceous beds forming in 

 the sea over Santa Barbara comity. The undisturbed con- 

 dition of the skeleton, and the total removal of osseous sub- 

 stance leaving a hollow cast in the ooze, suggest a deep- 

 sea fish, or that the fish suddenly dropping to the bottom 

 was buried in the ooze and gradually destroyed by the living 

 forms whoso skeletons, in turn, made the casket of our fossil. 



Tossi! by the kindness of the Magne-Silica Co. 



21 



