270 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



occasionally taken" there. And they have never 

 reappeared in any abundance, so far as we can 

 learn, a fact suggesting that the local body of fish 

 concerned was not very numerous, and that it 

 received but few recruits from the more abundant 

 stock to the southward. 



The fluke is so rare a straggler north of Cape 

 Cod Bay that there is only one definite record — - 

 for Casco Bay (specimens collected in 1873). 

 We may add that we have never seen or heard 

 of one caught in the inner part of Massachusetts 

 Bay, and that it is unknown in the Bay of Fundy. 



Importance. — This is one of the best of our 

 flatfishes on the table, usually bringing a higher 

 price than any other except the halibut; in 1947 

 it sold for 15 cents on the average in New Bedford, 

 the halibut about 21 cents. And the landings of 

 fluke from within the limits of the Gulf of Maine, 

 totaling about 543,000 pounds (mostly from near 

 Nantucket Shoals) were worth about $90,000 to 

 fishermen that year. This is also the gamest of 

 our flatfishes, biting freely on almost any bait, 

 even taking artificial lures at times, while large 

 ones put up a strong resistance when hooked. It 

 is too bad that the fluke is not so common north 

 of Cape Cod as it is to the south. 



Four-spotted flounder Paralichthys oblongus 

 1815 (Mitchill) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2632. 



Description. — This flatfish resembles the summer 

 flounder (p. 267) so closely in its general make-up 



that we need mention only the points of differ- 

 ence. Most apparent of these are that it has 

 fewer dorsal fin rays (72 to 81 dorsal and 60 to 

 67 anal rays, contrasted with 85 to 94 and 60 

 to 73, respectively, in the summer flounder), 

 and tbat its mottled gray back is invariably 

 marked with four large, oblong, and very con- 

 spicuous black eye spots edged with pale pinkish, 

 two of them situated at each margin of the body, 

 as the illustration shows (fig. 135). Incidentally, 

 we have seen two of them on which the lower 

 side, rearward from the gill openings was as 

 dark as the upper side, and marked, similarly, 

 with four eye spots; also others that were more 

 or less dark below. 18 



This is also a much smaller fish than the sum- 

 mer flounder, for the adults average only about 

 12 inches long with 16 inches as about the 

 maximum. 



Habits. — Although this is a rather common 

 fish about Woods Hole in May and June, and is 

 still more numerous along the coast of New 

 York, very little is known of its habits. It does 

 not usually come into as shoal water as the sum- 

 mer flounder often does, being caught most often 

 in 7 to 17 fathoms in Vineyard Sound, for example, 

 near Woods Hole. And the many that have been 

 trawled by the Albatross II and Albatross III 

 between Georges Bank and northern North Car- 

 olina, have been generally distributed from 

 about 23 fathoms down to at least 150 fathoms. 



u Fish trawled by the Eugene Hot! Marthas Vineyard, Jan. 27 to Feb. 3, 

 1950, at 47 to 67 fathoms. 





Figure 135. — Four-spotted flounder (Paralichthys oblongus), Woods Hole. From Goode. Drawing by H. L. Todd. 



