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Note on some Supposed Hybrids between the Turbot 
and the Brill. 
By 
Ernest W. L. Holt. 
‘He specimens conform toa type which appears to be fairly well 
known to Grimsby fishermen and fish merchants, and which is always 
regarded by them as the offspring of the parents mentioned in the 
title. The object of the present note is to discuss the probabilities 
of the correctness of this diagnosis as fully as the material allows. 
The form can hardly be said to be rare, since within two years I 
have secured three specimens, while I have heard of several others 
having been present in the market. In some old manuscript notes 
kindly lent me by my friend Mr. G, L. Alward I find descriptions 
which apply to two fish of the same type, while Dr. Giinther tells me 
that he has received several from London fish merchants. 
Notes of apparently similar fish have from time to time appeared 
in both scientific and sporting publications, since Day (Fish G. Brit., 
i, p. 13) refers to specimens described in the Proceedings of the 
Zoological Society and the Field, while Smitt has recently given 
both description and figure (Hist. Skand. Fish., ed. 2, p. 446). 
DESCRIPTION OF SPECIMENS. 
The specimens which have come under my own observation are 
three innumber; they were trawled in the North Sea, one in June,1892, 
and the others in the same month of the following year. 
Colour.—In the fresh condition they presented so close a resem- 
blance in colour to brill that they might easily have been mistaken for 
a fish of that species. The brill, as is well known, is of a reddish-brown 
colour on the ocular side, diversified with sundry lighter markings, 
which markings are retained to some extent after death. The turbot, 
on the other hand, as it appears in the market, is of nearly uniform 
olive-brown colour, the lighter markings conspicuous in living 
examples being rapidly masked by post-mortem expansion of the 
darker chromatophores. Specimens of the two species may certainly 
