18 



The pectoral fin has usually a black spot on its outer half, but very often this spot is 

 only light brown, its intensity varying according to the action of light upon the 

 animal. 



When we examine still more minutely the elements of the coloration now described, 

 we find that each of them is compound, made up of still smaller markings which 

 have a definite relation to the scales. The scales are imbricated like the tiles on a 

 roof, and the exposed portion of each, which projects backwards, has the shape 

 of the sector of a circle. Except in the white spots, where the whole sector is 

 opaque white, the basal angle of the sector is lightest in colour, and the colour 

 deepens in intensity to the extreme border which is darkest. Even in the lightest 

 part of the ground colour the border of each scale is distinctly defined by its 

 brownish colour, while in the darkest part of the blotches and black specks the curved 

 edge and the posterior half of the scale is black, while the anterior angle is light 

 brown or even yellow. 



The scales do not extend right up to the edge of the transparent cornea of the eyes, 

 the skin bordering the cornea is smooth, and coloured green with brown specks, the 

 iris is yellowish-grey marked with radiating brown lines. The pupil is black at its 

 edges, but in the centre of it is a beautiful iridescent spot which dissection shows to 

 belong not to the surface of the cornea, but to that of the crystalline lens. 



This species, being abundant on both the shores of the Mediterranean and the 

 Atlantic coasts of Europe, has been generally known since the earliest historical times. 

 It is mentioned by some of the ancient historical writers as /3ovyXwo-<rog by the 

 Greeks, and lingulaca or solea by the Eomans. The former two names are taken from 

 its resemblance in shape to the tongue, the latter from its resemblance to the sole of 

 a shoe. Similar names are still in use in the various European languages : the 

 Germans call it zunge, the tongue, and we call it the sole. In Italy it is called in 

 some places lingua or liriguattola, in others sogliola. The name tongue is also used 

 sometimes for small soles at Billingsgate. 



After the revival of learning in the sixteenth century, when the study of systematic 

 natural history began to develop, the name Buglossus or Solea, borrowed from the 

 ancients, was used for this fish by all naturalists up to the time of Artedi, that is up 

 to the commencement of the eighteenth century. 



Artedi, who died in 1734, placed all the flat fishes which had previously been 

 usually grouped together by the mediaeval ichthyologists, in one genus, Pleuronectes, 

 a name first introduced by himself. 



Linnaeus, who edited Artedi's works, added little to the knowledge of fishes beyond 

 applying binomial terms to the species defined by the latter. He named the sole 

 Pleuronecles solea, in which he was followed by a number of his successors. 



But it was soon found necessary to make the flat' fishes not a single genus, but a 

 family, classifying the diverse forms under various genera. This was in reality a 

 return to the practice of the pre-Linnaean naturalists, the results of Artedi's accurate 



