446 



- SCANDINAVIAN FISHKS. 



liciug only slightly thickened, entirely covered with 

 skin, and with a scarcely perceptible buckle, which 

 externally appears like a small tubercle, and from whic'h 

 the groove in the scale runs in a forward direction. 

 The anterior bend of the lateral line is comparatively 

 low and long, as in the Brill, its height above the line 



as characteristic of the Brill, this form resembles the 

 preceding one; but as in the Turbot and the preceding 

 form the base of the ventral fin on the blind side is 

 more than 8 % of the length of the body. 



The coloration of the Turbot-like Brill is olive- 

 gray, with Ijlackish brown, ocellated or simple spots 



Fi2-. 114. 









Fig. 114. Bothus vhombus hybridus, cf, 



af tlie natural size. Talien in Stromstad Fjord, on the lOtli of May, 1889, 

 by C. A. Hansson. 



from tlie beginning of the lateral line l)ehind the tem- 

 poral region to the beginning of the straight part, is 

 about a third of the length of this line, wliich in this 

 form as in the Brill is equal to, or even greater than, 

 the length of the middle rays of the caudal fin. In the 

 other points that we remarked in the preceding form 



on the body and the vertical fins, almost as in 

 V. Weight's figure of tlie Brill, though tlie large 

 clouded spots are more indistinct. Tlie white spots 

 at the bases of the dorsal and anal fins, as 'well as on 

 the lateral line and the operculum, are also jn'eserved 

 in this form. 



In whatever way we choose to explain these two 

 forms — whether as hybrids, which seems most likely, 



they show such 



or as varieties of another signification 



an intermingling of the characters of the Turbot with 

 those of the Brill that we c-aii hardly regard these two 

 chief species of the genus as widely separate. 



