TRANSPORTATION OF TURBOT AND SOLKS. 8G"J 



of getting a wrong and insignificant fish in waters where, finding bnt 

 one species in market, I was i)reviously unaware ol" tlieir existence. 



November 30. — Eleven of the soles procured yesterday were dead this 

 morning; many of them show red blotches on the white side as if blood 

 was congested there from injuiies; put them in spirit for the Smithsouiiiu 

 Institution. High wind and rain ; no fishing. 



December 1. — At suggestion of Mr. C L. Jackson, consulting natural- 

 ist of tbe aquarium, I hired a boat and two men, and we went out to 

 fish oue tide with a beam-trawl, llesult: five small soles and a great 

 quantity of flounders from 1 to 3 inches long. The fishermen now say 

 it is too late in the seasou for soles, and regret that I did not arrive a 

 fortnight earlier. This is the usual consolation for collectors every- 

 where. 



December 3. — Fleetwood, still ftirther up the coast, is a famous place 

 for soles. Went there; same story — "too late." Dropped a line to a 

 fisherman at Bangor, Wales, to know if any were to be had below Liver- 

 pool. 



December G. Weather has been good and the men have fished, but 

 caught no soles. A letter from Bangor gives no hope. The five caught 

 on the 1st, and the two on hand, are dead, and it looks like a hopeless 

 task to get enoagh for a trial ; for if they will not live a week in the 

 aquarium they certainly will not on the ship, and I had reluctantly 

 made up my mind to return without them, when Mr. Long offered me his 

 nearly full grown ones from the show-tanks where he had fed them to 

 their present size from yearlings of 3 inches, and of which he had 

 between twenty and thirty specimens. 



December 7. — Wrote Mr. Canard that the fish would be ready to go at 

 his earliest convenience. The men caught twenty small soles to-day, but 

 all died before getting them ashore; they say that soles will die in a 

 can if there is a frost, no matter what the temperature of the water in- 

 side may be. This is surely untrue ; possibly they may not stand a cer- 

 tain degree, but the men evidently do not knowthedyingpoint. Mr. Long 

 states the extremes of temperature at Southport pier as 45^ and CS°. 

 Thought it well to know how they would stand water without circulation, 

 and so I put a sole G inches long in a gallon of water at noon, and looked 

 at it every half hour ; at 9 p. m. it seemed as fresh as ever, and I thought 

 if it would live nine hours in a gallon, it might live twelve as well, and 

 changed the water, measuring it with a half-pint glass; woke up in the 

 night and suddenly remembered that I had only put in twelve haU'-pints 

 instead of sixteen ; fish alive at 9 a. m., apparently ignorant of my blun- 

 der, and lived until 9 p. m., twenty-four hours, when 1 considered that 

 it had undergone trial enough, and replaced it in the tank alive and well. 

 In this experiment it is fair to state that, being placed in the bottom of an 

 oval can 2 feet by 1 wide, with one end slightly raised, there was a com- 

 paratively great amount of surface exposed, and the oxygenation conse- 

 quently better than is usual in a transportation can. There is a Cuuard 



