70 report of commissioners of inland fisheries. 



ii. ventral fin of left side placed nearly on the ridge of 

 abdomen; body ovate and extremely thin. 



8. The Window Pane or Sand Dab. 



Light olive brown in color, translucent, 

 marbled with paler and with many 

 small dark spots. 



The remainder of this paper is intended to present, as fully as space 

 will allow, the most important facts which have been ascertained 

 regarding the life history and life conditions of those individual 

 species of fiat-fishes which are present in Rhode Island waters. 

 Pictures of these species are shown in Plates I to IX.* 



THE HALIBUT. 



{Hippoglossus hippoglossus.) 



Plate I. 



I. Distribution and Habitat. The natural habitat of the halibut 

 is in the cold water of the northern seas; it is widely distributed 

 along both shores of the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, and 

 it ranges well up into the Arctic regions. The water in which it is 

 most frequently found is never of a higher temperature than 45° F., 

 and often but little above 32° F. The northern limit of its range has 

 never been determined; it occurs along the whole west coast of 

 Greenland, is abundant at Iceland and Spitzbergen, and has been 

 observed on both sides of the North Cape. In the Pacific, halibut 

 are most abundant in the Gulf of Alaska, and they have been taken 

 as far north as Behring Straits. There is no reason for doubting 

 that the southern shores of the Arctic Ocean along both continents 



* Plates I to VI and Plate VIII and IX are reproduced from Goode's "Natural History of 

 Aquatio Animals," 1884; Plate VII is reproduced from "American Food and Game Fishes," 

 1902, by Jordan and Evermann. 



