CHAPTER X. 



THE FLOUNDER Platcssa vulgaris. Gill. 



When the angler's paper of America employs its artist to depict 

 the form of the first caught flounder of the summer run, and when 

 it announces the results of his labors two weeks ahead, then my 

 humble pen needs no excuse for treating of the flatfish in these 

 essays, and I will give none. 



The flounder I fear has been much looked down upon ; it 

 has been called opprobrious epithets, such as " nigger fish," but its 

 broad back will bear all this abuse, and it will continue to emerge 

 triumphant from the frying pan with its tail turned up in a disdain- 

 ful twist. 



The flounder has one virtue not possessed by its prouder relations ; 

 he is always ready to be caught. Just as soon as it gets mild enough 

 for the hardiest fisherman, he has but to drop his hook over a soft 

 mud-bank, and w r hen he raises his line, lo ! there is a flounder at the 

 other end. And again, when the flounder makes up his deliberate 

 mind to bite he does so in a thorough manner, and when the angler 

 pulls him out the flounder has by some peculiar internal mechanism 

 worked the hook almost down to his tail (swallowed the hook, as the 

 boys say), thus saving the fisherman that great vexation of spirit 

 consequent on losing a noble fish. 



Before this is in type every reader of THE ANGLER will have seen 

 a faithful likeness of the flounder, so it is unnecessary for me to de- 

 scribe his shape. In color he varies, from an instance of one white 



