THE NORTH SEA 87 



abound where the bottom is sandy, and may be 

 regarded as the dominant forms of the North Sea, 

 especially the northern part of it. 



Lemon-dab are trawled in sufficient numbers on 

 stony reaches. The flounder affects brackish waters, 

 but comes to the sea to spawn, when it is found off 

 the mouths of rivers. 



The holibut is at once the largest, and most 

 northernly of the flat fishes. Off Iceland it attains 

 monstrous proportions, and is so heavy that very 

 few are needed to make a ton. It thins out before 

 reaching Aberdeen, very few are captured in the 

 latitude of the Tay, and none at all past the south 

 of England. 



Details might be multiplied to confusion and 

 weariness ; but this seems to be the main feature 

 in the natural history of the North Sea. It is a 

 common water of the southernly tending round 

 fishes, and the northernly tending flat fishes, where 

 haddock, and cod meet with turbot, and sole, and 

 mingle with dab, and plaice. For, although the flat 

 fishes reach so far north, and there, probably 

 because of an abundance of food, grow so large, it 

 is still true that in high latitudes, where round fishes 

 abound, they are practically unknown. 



Probably, the English waters, being farthest south, 



