WATERS OP WESTERN INDfA, 11 



Turn him over, tlie whole surface now exposed is white, and no 

 -eyes are to bo found at all. If he could speak, like the fish in the 

 Arabian Nights, he could not tell us more plainly that he is a " flat- 

 fish" belonging to the family now under consideration, and acknow- 

 ledging the presidence of the Turbot. 



The most curious thing about these fiat-fishes is that their excep- 

 tional attitude and coloration, and their preposterous squint, are 

 not congenital, but acquired habits. 



The sole starts in life swimming upright, like the pomflet, and 

 with one eye on each side of his head. But early in youth ho 

 acquires the habit of lying on one side, the necessities of his life 

 (and probably the conditions of light) bleach that side, darken the 

 wpper one, the under eye gets slewed round, distorting the whole 

 brow in the process, and with some curious progressive deformations 

 of his tail, which need not be described here, he becomes a 

 complete sole as we fry him. 



The giant of this tribe is the Halibut of the North Pacific and 

 Atlantic, who gets to the dimensions ©f a reasonable round table. 

 He is followed in size, and much excelled in flavour, by the Turbot, 

 after whom (in Europe) come the Brills and Flounders. All of these 

 are very broad £sh, and even the flounders, which are the least of 

 the lot, come to 10 lbs. weight, perhaps more. 



The Soles, though closely allied, are much inferior in all threo 

 dimensions, especially in " beam." All are marine, though a few 

 pass above tidemarks. 



The first division is not very strongly represented in tropical seas. 

 On this coast its chief member is Pb-ettodeserumei, which, for want 

 of a better name, I may call the Indian Flounder. It grows to be 

 15 or 16 inches long, and is of the same flavour, as the soles (the 

 northern broad fiat-Ash differ very much from soles in this respect). 

 It always comes to table, indeed, as a "sole, " but flounders do that 

 in other countries without its claim to that honour. 



The Maratha name is " bakar, " that is, " a cake of unleavened 

 bread," and no doubt some of my readers know that an allied fish 

 is known in Scotland as a "bannock-fluke." (Vide the Antiquary's 

 famous deal with Mrs, Mucklebackit.) The tropical soles are 

 numerous, and of various habit. Some species haunt rocks and -coral 

 reefs, and others sand and mud; the former are often handsomely 

 marked. The sand, however, is the typical ground of the whole 

 tribe, and hence it happens that soles are far less plentiful on the 



