The Flatties 



cash to them. And merchants did not want scientists nosing about 

 a buy that might make them a profit of several hundreds. So men 

 knew httle but what fishermen had observed in the course of their 

 labours and scientists in their very limited direct observations. 

 The halibut had big eggs. That was the main point, eggs much big- 

 ger than any of the gadoids, bigger even than any of the other flat- 

 fish. And these eggs were spawned in deep water, water that ran 

 down to half a mile at least, and perhaps on to the full mile and 

 over it. A mile of water, and under it animals were copulating, 

 pairing at any rate. The thought fascinated Jan. 



These fertilised eggs did not rise to the surface as did the eggs of 

 gadoids - nor did the eggs of most of the other flatfish. But they 

 were not glued to the bottom either. They floated in mid-water. 

 It was only the young fish or the larvae that rose, creeping with the 

 tides and with the winds towards shallower water and the verge of 

 the land. This difference between flatfish and roundfish was perhaps 

 even deeper than the distinction between the shapes of their bod- 

 ies. The eggs of the halibut probably sauntered with the deep sea 

 currents at depths of anything up to seven hundred and fifty fath- 

 oms . Nobody was very certain about what really happened because 

 only about fifteen halibut eggs had ever been removed from the 

 Atlantic - and fifteen was a very small number, and might give a 

 very eccentric idea, when it came to a population of fifteen million 

 or more, or less. For again, nobody had the foggiest notion about 

 how many halibut lived in the Atlantic, because nobody knew 

 where they lived. Some of the fishermen whom Jan talked to, 

 thought that the various fishing techniques did no more than touch 

 on the upper water limits of the population. No fishing instru- 

 ment went much deeper than three hundred and fifty fathoms. 

 Yet, according to these men, the chief concentrations of the spec- 

 ies were found below the five hundred fathom contour. They 

 were not touched by any human cunning. But then there were 

 other fishermen who thought that halibut lived mainly on the deep 

 water banks, between two and three hundred fathoms, and there 

 was no gainsaying anybody. Jan knew nothing about it, and neither 



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