181 



PLATESSA. 



Mouth moderate, gape not large; cutting teeth in the jaws, none in 

 the roof of the mouth. Dorsal fin beginning only so far forward as 

 the upper eye, and neither dorsal nor anal coming near the tail. 

 British species have their eyes towards the right. 



PLAICE. 



Plaice, Passer Bellonii, ") 



Qnadratulus Boucleletii, > Willoughby; p. 96, pi. F. 3. 

 Platessa Ausonil, Plaise, j 



Platessa platessa, Cuvier. 



" vulr/aris, Fleming; Br. Animals, p. 198. 



" " Jenyns; Manual, p. 454. 



" " Yakrell; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 297. 



Pleuronede plie, Lacepede. Eisso. 



Pleuronectes platessa, Linn^us. Blocu, pi. 42. 



" " Donovan, pi. 6. 



" " Gunther; Cat. Br. Museum, 



vol. iv, p. 440. 



Among the references wliicli Willoughby makes to the names 

 of this fish there is one to the poems of Ausonius, Epistle 4, 

 where it is called mollis platessa; a designation which conveys 

 the opinion held by some of our own day, that its flesh is 

 too soft to form an acce^Jtable food; while other writers have 

 spoken of it in much more favourable terms. Nor is this 

 difference of opinion to be ascribed altogether to variety of 

 taste in those who have expressed it, since there is reason 

 to believe that no inconsiderable variety is found in the quality 

 of the fish itself, according to the situation in which it is 

 caught; and this again is probably to be ascribed as well to 

 the nature of the ground, whether it consist of mud or clean 

 sand, as to the quality of the food on which it has been 

 feeding; for the latter may well be supposed to exert an 

 influence on the delicacy and firmness of its flesh. We have 



