96 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
not in pounds, but in hundredweights. Even the flounder, 
which has the best claim in this family to be reckoned as a 
river-fish, is better known as a sea-fish; but it often ascends 
rivers considerably beyond the influence of the tide. Before 
pollution closed the estuary of the Thames to the ascent of 
sea-fish, flounders were taken in large numbers as high as 
the navigation weirs would allow them to go—namely, at 
Teddington and Sunbury. It is a tradition that under 
Westminster Bridge was once a favourite pitch for them. 
The rivers of Holland and Belgium abound in flounders, 
which wander so far up the Scheldt and its tributaries as to 
appear in the neighbourhood of a place with few maritime 
associations—namely, Waterloo. The migration of the 
flounder, unlike that of salmon and eels, does not appear 
to be connected with reproductive purposes, nor is it regularly 
seasonal. Probably food and refuge are the determining 
motives, and the ascent of young eels in myriads from the 
sea no doubt induce flounders to follow them. 
In regard to the common name for this fish, there is no 
reason to search for an origin more remote than the obvious 
one of a creature that flounders and flaps about when caught ; 
and perhaps the same idea is conveyed in the synonym “ fluke,” 
which is the older name for the fish in this country, being 
from the Anglo-Saxon flac (/Elfric, roth century). It is to be 
noted that in the Solway district the name of flounder is applied 
popularly to the more excellent plaice. 
In aspect this fish is the reverse of imposing. Most 
countenances would suffer in expression by the transplantation 
of the left eye to the right part of the forehead, and 
to this the flounder offers no exception. Moreover, 
the severe lateral compression which the figure of the animal 
has undergone has increased its breadth to the proportion of 
two-thirds of the entire length, which must be pronounced 
detrimental to elegance. The expanse of flat side thus created 
affords a fine field for the display of startling colours in which 
Appearance, 
