Flounder Distribution, Size, &c. 39 



(1) The FLOUNDER (Pleuronectes flesus) has a wide distri- 

 bution, but with essentially an estuarine, river and creek habitat. 

 Tli us Hamford water, the Colne, Blackwater, Crouch, Thames, 

 Medway, Swale, and the Canterbury Stour are all less or 

 more its resort. The brackish water and muddy reaches are 

 its chief haunt, and, as is well known, they run far up the 

 rivers quite into the fresh water. Even flounders at London have 

 not been altogether strangers of late ; whilst previous to the 

 rivor's becoming foul, they were regular part residents up stream 

 as far as Teddington. Indeed, the Thames has always been 

 celebrated for its flounders, and the Medway not a whit behind. 



It has been further remarked that they seem to prefer the 

 Essex side of the Estuary; the nature of the ground better 

 suiting their habits than most of the N. Kent shore. They 

 are in force at Holehaven and quite round the Hadleigh Ray 

 all the year ; though the larger breeding ones thence towards 

 Southend flats, Shoebury-sands guts, and the Maplin swins, 

 gather there more during the antumn and winter. The flounder 

 does not seem to have diminished in the slightest from years 

 gone by, though in some years they are more plentiful than in 

 others. 



Among a basketful (30 to 40) caught by hook in the 

 Swatchway in mid-December, the majority were big ones, both 

 sexes. The lengths of those critically examined ranged from 

 9| to 12 inches ; scarcely any of the others were below 8 inches, 

 though 5, 6, to 8 are common sizes of adults in the same 

 spots during mid- summer. 



According to authorities, flounders only spawn in salt-water,* 

 further from or nearer shore as the case may be. This may be 

 applicable to the seaward portions of Essex (Wallet and Swins), 

 but superadded there is evidence of spawning in the more 

 brackish water of the Thames mouth. Some of the Leighmen 



* Consult Cunningham "Marketable Marine Fishes," who gives a summary of 

 evidence concerning this point : also Mclntosh " Marine Food Fishes " ; and Herdman 

 Rep. Lancashire S. F. Labor, for 1803, alt-o Ascroft ibid, for 1899. But Parnell asserts 

 they spawn in brackish water, and Patterson avers they spawn in January in the 

 brackish Breydon Estuarine Broad, at the back of Yarmouth (Zool. 1897). 



