44 



b. Flounder. Pleuronectes flesus. 



As an excuse for communicating these tables » in extenso" I may 

 say that I do so because I am wishful that the reader should not 

 carry away the irapression that it is a case of two forms separated 

 by artificial or problematic differences , but that he should be con- 

 vinced that we are dealing with two perfectly defiuite species, 

 separated by well marked distinctious. 



One luight leap to the conclusion that , as in the Zuiderzee 

 not the plaice but the flounder is the object of the fishery, a 

 good deal of the damage caused by the fishing with »kuilnetten" 

 is averted , because the young flatfishes killed by these apparatus 

 for the greatest part are not young Sounders but young plaices. 

 Not niuch can be said against that argument — it is open 

 however to an objection. The bays or inlets with brackish water 

 which the Northsea fonns at the Dutch and German coasts (the 

 Zuiderzee , DoUard , the Jade-Bay , partly also the Baltic) are to 

 be considered as gigantic nurseries for those Northsea-fishes which 

 spawn near the coast. There are Northsea-fishes (such as the 



