THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 161 



torals are stuck on to the head, and the base of the ventrals 

 ttached to that of the pectorals. From the circumstance, 

 however, that the creature is twisted half-round and laid on 

 its side, we find that at least one of the pairs of double fins 

 — the pectorals — perform the part of single fins, — one pro- 

 jecting from the animal's superior, the other from its inferior 

 side, in the way the anal and dorsal fins project from the 

 upper and under surfaces of other fishes ; while its real dor- 

 sal and anal fins, both developed very largely, and — in order 

 to preserve its balance- — in about an equal degree, and won- 

 derfully correspondent in form, perform, from their lateral 

 position, the functions of double fins. Indeed, at a first glance 

 they seem the analogues of the largely-developed pectorals of 

 a very different family of flat fishes, — the rays. It would 

 appear as if single and double fins, by some such mutual 

 agi-eement as that which, according to the old ballad, took 

 place between the churl of Auchtermuchty and his wife, had 

 «jgreed to exchange callings, and perform each the work of 

 the other. The tail, too, possesses, in consequence of the 

 twist, not the vertical position of other fish-tails, but is spread 

 out horizontally, like the tails of the cetacea. It is, however, 

 in the head of the flounder and its cogeners that we find the 

 more extraordinary distortions exemplified. In order to ac- 

 commodate it to the general twist, which rendered lateral 

 what in other fishes is dorsal and abdominal, and dorsal and 

 abdominal what in other fishes is lateral, one-half its features 

 had to be twisted to the one side, and the other half to the 

 other. The face and cranium have undergone such a change 

 as that which the human face and cranium would undergo 

 were the eyes to be drawn towards the left ear, and the mouth 

 towards the right. The skull, in consequence, exhibits in 

 its fixed bones a strange Cyclopean character, unique among 

 the families of creation : it has its one well-marked eye-orbit 

 opening, like that of Polyphemus, direct in the middle of the 



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