THE FLAT-FISH FAMILY 23! 



erroneous theory is set down on the authority of the fishermen 

 of Morecambe Bay, but in his chapter on the spawning of fishes 

 it is recorded that he hatched some of this kind of spawn from 

 Herne Bay. The fishermen of the neighbourhood asserted 

 most positively that these objects were plaice spawn, but 

 when hatched they proved to be the spawn of a worm. Not- 

 withstanding all efforts at the instruction of fishermen, this false 

 belief was still as tenaciously held as ever among the fishermen 

 of Leigh in Essex, when I lectured there in 1893. Seeing is 

 believing, and it is the invisible character of floating fish eggs 

 which makes it so difficult for fishermen to believe in them. 



Another erroneous theory of fishermen is that the flounder 

 carries its eggs on its back. This is known to be true of the 

 Surinam toad, but it is not true of the flounder. This fish in 

 certain rivers where the water is fresh or nearly so, is frequently 

 affected with a curious disease of the skin, which consists in the 

 presence of a number of small tumours, having somewhat the size 

 and appearance of millet seeds. These are both scattered singly 

 and collected in clusters. The disease is mentioned in Day's 

 British Fishes, on the authority of Lowe, who observed it in the 

 river Ousc at King's Lynn. It has been described by Professor 

 Mclntosh and others in the Reports of the Scottish Fishery Board. 

 I myself saw numerous cases of it among the flounders taken in 

 thestow-nets in the Forth at Alloa. The fishermen there assured 

 me that the little knot-like tumours were the eggs of the fish. 



Reversed flounders are very common, that is to say speci- 

 mens which have the eyes and colour on the left side instead of 

 on the right. Once,. on board a trawler, between the Eddystone 

 and the land, I noticed that there were almost as many flounders 

 left-sided as right-sided among a large number caught. The crew 

 of the boat asserted that the left-sided were males and the right- 

 sided females ; but I found that each kind included both sexes. 



According to Dr. Fulton's researches, the flounder is the most 

 prolific fish in British seas in proportion to its size (see p. 69). 



The Eggs and their Development. The eggs of the flounder 

 are transparent and buoyant, and only distinguishable from 

 those of the plaice by their smaller size. The egg is from "95 to 

 I '03 mm. in breadth (about ^ inch), and is quite round. They 

 are to -be taken at sea in the tow-net in February, March, and 

 April, and have been repeatedly fertilised artificially and hatched 



