FLOUNDERS ARE WONDERFUL 



is ready to change diet to bottom creatures, or to 

 leap up and seize passing fish. 



Instead of the paired fins growing into waving 

 wings as in the flattened shark, the vertical fins in- 

 crease, growing forward to the very snout and back 

 to the tail fin, thus forming a circle of fin about the 

 fish. The right pectoral remains small and functions 

 as a keel, while, as we have seen in the peacock 

 flounder, the left pectoral grows almost as long as 

 the body, and can scull and sail right lustily. 



Flatfish are far from being sedentary even if 

 they do look at life from a cross-eyed bottom point 

 of view. One fish, marked and set at liberty, aver- 

 aged more than a quarter of a mile a day for over 

 two years before it was captured again. The dangers 

 which beset these little individualists are legion and 

 are reflected in the number of eggs laid, which may 

 reach twelve or fourteen million. Yet in spite of 

 the enemies whose whole diet consists of filet of sole 

 on the fin, enormous numbers survive — unques- 

 tionable proof of the value of a life spent prone on 

 the bottom. 



From the time of the Egyptians, flatfish and 

 especially soles have been considered great deli- 

 cacies ; poetry has been composed in their honor and 

 they have been painted and hewn in stone. My 

 adventure with the peacock flounder recalls the 

 old Greek myth concerning soles, that these 

 foot-shaped flatfish were worn by regal water 

 nymphs : 



103 



