DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE-HISTORIES OF TELEOSTEAN FISHES. 845 
surface of the body is, however, much more generally studded with pigment-patches and 
cells, and the touches on the marginal fin are better developed. On the other hand, 
except a few minute grains along the body-line, the whole left side in some is white. 
The black pigment-spots in the American flounders, figured so deftly by ALEXANDER 
Agassiz, show similar features, and the spots described are very generally distributed. 
The difficulties in diagnosing from size alone, are well illustrated in this species. 
Young forms, captured at different times, measured 9 mm. on the 15th April, 9 to 27 mm. 
on the 26th April, 15 mm. on the 24th May, 8 to 30 mm. on the 8th June, 10 to 18 mm. 
on the 18th June, 80 mm. on the 27th June, as well as 40 and 94 mm., while many 
ranged on each side of three-quarters of an inch. In July from 22 to32mm. In August, 
many captured in sand-pools near the estuary of the Eden were only 12 mm. 
Rhombus maximus, Will.—The ripe ova of the turbot were procured from a female 
of 12 lbs., on the 10th July, during the trawling expeditions of 1884.* They are very 
small, only a little larger than those of the rockling, and the embryos, many of which 
were hatched from pelagic ova of the same appearance, captured by the tow-net on the 
spot, are likewise small. This seems to have been the first occasion on which ripe eggs 
of this species had been procured in this country. No oil-globule is present. 
A post-larval form procured in August in considerable numbers, both south-east of 
the Isle of May and off the Isle of May rocks, is apparently the turbot. The youngest 
example, the eyes of which are still symmetrical, measures about 6 mm., with a maximum 
breadth of about 3 mm.t The larval tail projects backward and slightly upward, 
and is still surrounded by the embryonic fin. It protrudes considerably beyond 
the inferior fin-rays developed beneath it. The head of the fish is proportionally large, — 
larger, as compared with the length of the fish, than in any other form examined. The 
mouth is large. The dorsal line is nearly straight from above the otocysts to the base 
of the tail, but the ventral line slopes rapidly downward from the tail to the anus, and 
again rises with an anterior curve to the jaw. Thus the body has a triangular outline. 
The dorsal and anal fins have rays, and are of moderate length. Papillee indicate the 
rudiments of the ventral fins. Both surfaces of the body are minutely speckled with 
black points, but the right is more uniformly marked in this way. The specks extend 
to the marginal fins, but not over them. 
The changes which follow—as seen in the next older forms—are the slight increase in 
depth and roundness of the body posteriorly, the elongation of the rays of the marginal 
fin, and the appearance of five or six touches, caused by aggregations of dots, in the 
dorsal, the ventral still remaining speckled as before. The closely approximated ventral 
fins have likewise minute black points, but the pectorals remain pale.{ The right eye 
meanwhile is gradually passing upward, and the embryonic fin is rapidly disappearing. 
* Vide Report, p. 363. 
+ The spawning period of the turbot in the Bultic is given as May and June, but in the North Sea, July (Mosius 
and HEINCKE). 
+ A larval pelagic flounder of Mediterranean (Peloria riippelii, Cocco) has remarkably pedunculate pectorals, a 
feature present in many young fishes (EMERY, Reale Accad. dei Lincet, Classe di scienze fisiche, math, &c., xiv., 1883). 
