"PERFECT-MOUTHED" FISHES 235 



ground the fish will be pale in colour ; on muddy ground, almost 

 black ; while if the surface of the ground is broken and unevenly 

 coloured, the fish will often be streaked and spotted to match. 



The eggs of Flat-fishes are of the separate, buoyant order, and 

 the young when hatched do not resemble their parents in appear- 

 ance. They are transparent and perfectly symmetrical, with one 

 eye on each side of the body in the ordinary manner, and they 

 swim in a vertical position as round fishes do. At first the tiny 

 creatures lead a free-swimming life, playing about near the sur- 

 face of the water and feeding on the numerous minute forms of 

 life floating in the sea. Then, while still very small, the fishes 

 take to the bottom and lie down on one side, and a gradual change 

 in form takes place. The roundness of form disappears and the 

 fish becomes flat ; the eye on the under side slowly shifts its 

 position and moves round to the upper side of the head ; and 

 (in some species) the bridge of the nose becomes bent and the face 

 twisted, giving the mouth the curious lop-sided appearance seen 

 in the Sole and several other Flat-fish. In some cases the migrating 

 eye of the fish travels round right over the top of the head ; in 

 others, when the dorsal fin extends to the snout, the eye passes 

 through the fleshy part of the fin, but not (as was at first supposed) 

 through the bones of the head. The larvae of Plaice and the 

 Common Flounder may be often caught in the spring on various 

 parts of the coast, and if the little fishes are kept in well-aerated 

 water this interesting transformation may be observed in all its 

 stages. 



Many quaint and interesting fishes are shore dwellers or visit 

 the coast at certain times of the year, and the young of many 

 deep-sea fishes frequent shallow waters during the early stages 

 of their existence. On rocky shores may be found several of the 

 Blennies, Wrasses, Gobies, and Recklings. The Smooth Blenny 

 (Blennius pholis) is a pugnacious little fish, remarkable for spend- 

 ing part of its time out of the water ; it often retires into a crevice 

 in a rock when the tide goes down, and waits there quite com- 

 fortably until the water returns to cover it again. The great 

 <f Catfish " or Wolf -fish that comes close in shore to spawn in 

 the early part of the year is a member of the Blenniida family. It 

 is sometimes 5 or 6 feet long, and is exceedingly fierce in dis- 

 position ; it has been known savagely to attack people wading 



