502 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



The winter flounder shows some tendency to break up into local races with 

 regard to the number of its fin rays '^ and perhaps in other characteristics, but 

 it remains to be seen whether these varieties are sufficiently distinct or constant 

 to give a clue to the local origin of individuals or of particular bodies of fish. 



Color. — The winter flounder, like other flatfish, varies in hue according to the 

 bottom on which it lies, but as a general rule it is the darkest of Gulf of Maine 

 flatfishes. Large ones are usually of some shade of muddy or slightly reddish 

 brown or dark slate above, sometimes almost black, and they vary from plain or 

 more or less mottled to definitely dotted with small spots of a darker shade of the 

 general ground tint. We have often noticed that there is usually a wide variation 

 in this respect among any lot of flounders. The blind side is white. The long 

 fins are usually tinged with reddish or yellowish, the ventrals and pectorals of the 

 eyed side are of the general ground tint, while their mates on the blind side are 

 pure white. Small fish are apt to be paler and more blotched or mottled than large. 

 Various color abnormalities have been recorded — ^fish, for example, that are par- 

 tially white on the eyed as well as on the blind side, or with the blind side yellow- 

 edged — and it is not uncommon to see specimens dark blotched on the blind side. 

 In fact, one-third of the fish caught near Providence, R. I., during the winter of 1897- 

 98 were these "black bellies," as fishermen call them, but in 1900 the commissioners 

 of fisheries of that State estimated them as forming only 4 per cent of the catch, 

 and since then none, or at most only an odd example, has been seen. In 1898 some 

 fry artificially hatched from eggs of "black-bellied" flounders were released in 

 Waquoit Bay, where this race was unknown, and in 1900 several "black beUies" 

 7 to 8 inches long (hence probably two years old) were taken there, suggesting that 

 this color variety is hereditary.'* 



Winter flounders change color to suit their surroundings, for they are usually 

 very dark on mud and pale on bright sand bottoms, but field experience suggests 

 that they have less control over shade and pattern than the summer flounder. 



Size. — The largest winter flounder on record is one 21 inches long by 17 inches 

 broad mentioned by Storer; and although "Welsh saw three of about 19J^ inches 

 weighing, respectively, 3J^, 3^, and 4 pounds, caught near Boon Island in April, 

 1913, fish longer than 18 inches or heavier than 3 pounds are unusual, the general 

 run of adults caught inshore being from 12 to 15 inches in length and 1)4. to 2 pounds 

 in weight. 



General range. — Shoal water along the Atlantic coast of North America, from 

 northern Labrador to Georgia. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This is the commonest shoal-water flounder 

 of the Gulf of Maine, there being no bay or harbor in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 

 or New England where it is not to be caught; and our experience goes to show that 

 Huntsman's (1922a, p. 70) description of it as "very abundant everywhere in 

 shallow water and at moderate depths" in the Bay of Fundy, and Storer's state- 

 ment that it is the most common flatfish in Massachusetts waters, apply equally 

 to the entire coast line of the Gulf, so much so that it would be tedious to give the 

 very considerable list of localities whence it has been recorded. 



n Bumpus. American Naturalist, Vol. XXXU, 189S, pp. 407-412. 



n Bulletin, United States Fish Commission, Vol. XIX, 1899 (1901), pp. 305-306. 



