102 



somewhat iiaore plentiful. They are much more abundant on a rough area of ground 

 to the west of the Eddystone, off Dodman Point in Cornwall. In this neighbourhood 

 I saw about fifteen soles in a single haul of the trawl in April, 1889. This ground 

 is often called the " California " ground, a name which was given to it when it was 

 first worked at the time of the rush to the gold-diggings in California. On the area 

 called by the Plymouth fishermen the Mount's Bay ground, soles are fairly abundant. 

 This ground lies off the entrance of Mount's Bay to the south of the Wolf Eock. 

 When I was on a trawler working there in April, 1889, the catches of soles numbered 

 six, seventeen, and fifty-seven, in three different hauls. The species is still more 

 abundant on the fishing gi'ounds off the north coast of Cornwall, and in 1889 large 

 numbers of trawlers from Lowestoft, Grimsby, and other ports on the east coast 

 worked over these grounds for several months in the earlier part of the year ; but 

 I have never been there myself. In 1889 the Newlyn fishermen, who are usually 

 exclusively engaged in drift-net fishing, found that large soles were abundant inside 

 Mount's Bay on the west of the Land's End promontory. They obtained small 

 traw^ls about twenty feet long which they worked over this area from their small 

 lugrgers in the month of March, when no mackerel or other surface fish were to be 



Do ' 



caught. One boat in which I went out obtained eleven, seventeen, and eleven soles 

 in three separate hauls, many of the fish being very fine specimens. 



None of the grounds mentioned are at a much greater depth than forty fathoms ; 

 over the ground last mentioned the ground varies from twenty to thirty-five fathoms. 

 All these areas are more or less sandy, the sand being in all cases of a very fire 

 texture and of dull grey colour. Trawls cannot be worked over a hard and rugged 

 bottom formed of rocks, but some of the grounds above mentioned where trawling is 

 carried on are by no means smooth. From the California ground the trawl brings 

 up numbers of the large mussel-like bivalve, Pinna nobilis, called caperlonga at 

 Plymouth, numbers of Pectens, called at Plymouth queens, at other places scallops or 

 clams, and large rugged stones. But we may conclude from the habits of the sole in 

 the aquarium that such ground contains patches of loose sand or gravel, and that 

 the soles live on these ; for in the aquarium the sole invariably when alarmed, like 

 all other flat-fish, buries itself in sand or gravel by rapidly shaking its longitudinal 

 fins. If a live sole in captivity is placed in sea water on a smooth solid surface, such 

 as the bottom of a flat porcelain dish, or the bare wooden or slate bottom of a tub 

 or tank it instinctively shakes its fin in the peculiar way by which it shakes the sand 

 or gravel over its "back," when there is any sand or gravel beneath it This rapid 

 movement of the fins is therefore a characteristic of its habits of life, and it is extremely 

 effective. The fish on a layer of sand, when alarmed, disappears in an instant, the 

 agitation of the sand renders the water around it turbid so that it is difficult to 

 locate the exact spot where the fish has buried itself. Usually when resting undisturbed 

 beneath the sand or gravel it leaves its eyes uncovered, and these can be detected by 

 careful search : but not easily for they do not differ greatly in appearance from small 



