50 FOOD FISHES 



live at the bottom of the sea, the most curious and wonderful 

 perhaps are the flat-fishes. The larva of plaice resembles that 

 of cod. It is hatched from eggs which float upon the surface of 

 the sea, but during its transformation it sinks towards the 

 bottom where, as a very young fish, it swims about in a normal 

 manner. Gradually, however, its body becomes flattened, 

 and it makes towards the shallower waters of the shore, where 

 it acquires the habit of lying on its left side ; at the same time 

 the exposed top side assumes the colour and appearance of the 

 pebbly or sandy ground on which it is lying (being generally 

 of a greyish-brown dotted over with orange-red spots) and the 

 left eye moves round to the top side. And there for the rest 

 of its life at the bottom of the sea it remains, sometimes slowly 

 swimming about among its fellows, at others almost completely 

 buried in the pebbly sand with only its head and extremely 

 mobile eyes projecting. 



It feeds on such creatures as the solen or razor- shells, of 

 which there are several kinds, some measuring as much as 

 eight inches, others much less. They bury themselves in the 

 sand, but the plaice digs them out, and either devours them 

 whole, crushing their thin shells with its strong flat teeth, or 

 it drags them out of their shells and eats the part which suits 

 it. Another little creature on which it feeds is the mactra 

 subtruncata, whose pretty little shells we find in abundance 

 on all our sandy beaches ; and sea-worms and star-fishes, too, 

 form part of its diet. 



Plaice are abundant in all the shallow waters in the north 

 of Europe, but they are caught in greatest numbers in the 

 North Sea, on the Dogger Bank, and the Great Fisher Bank, 

 and the English coast north of the Humber, and also off the 

 shores of Iceland. 



Steam trawlers from Grimsby and Hull and many other 

 places fish these waters and land enormous catches at their 

 respective ports. 1 



1 In the spring and summer, multitudes of small plaice are caught off 

 the German and Danish shores of the North Sea and landed at Grimsby, 

 Hull, and London. 



