THE FLAT-FISH FAMILY 255 



spawning season in the same year, and were therefore about five 

 or six months old. In September, 1895, I saw some hundreds 

 of small soles 2 to 2i inches long brought up in the trawl of a 

 professional shrimper working on the Newcome Sand, off Lowes- 

 .toft. The depth was ii to 2 or 3 fathoms, and the number of 

 these young soles at each haul varied from 20 to 100. The 

 other contents of the net consisted of shrimps, a few larger soles 

 6 to 9 inches long, a few plaice about the same size, and a con- 

 siderable number of small whiting 3 to 12 inches long. Plaice 

 and dabs as small as the small soles were very scarce. Besides 

 the fish there were quantities of zoophytes and various worthless 

 fish, namely, weevers, gobies, pipe-fishes, &c. There were also 

 some star-fishes, swimming-crabs, shore-crabs, sand-hoppers, and 

 bivalve shell-fish. 



In tracing the history of young soles it is very important to 

 distinguish them accurately from specimens of the solenette, 

 which are about the same size, and at first sight extremely 

 similar in appearance. In fact both fishermen and fish merchants 

 constantly mistake the solenettes, which are frequently taken by 

 the large beam trawl on many of the North Sea fishing grounds, 

 for young soles. In the long course of my experience I have met 

 with only one skipper who held the opinion that the solenette 

 was a distinct kind of fish from the sole, and he was not aware 

 of the exact points of difference between them. The solenette 

 can always be distinguished by the absence of the breast-fin, 

 and the black lines on the marginal fins. The young of the 

 common and valuable sole has only been taken hitherto in 

 shallow water near shore, while the solenette is often found in 

 the crevices of the ground rope on the grounds of the southern 

 and eastern parts of the North Sea, many miles from land, where 

 the depth is less or not much more than 20 fathoms. 



The smallest soles taken in the shove-net at the mouth of the 

 Humber in April, were 2f inch to 3 inch long, and occurred 

 only in small numbers, four in one haul. These were evidently 

 the produce of the preceding season, and might be from 8 to 12 

 months old. Five taken in May were 2\ to 4f inches long, four- 

 teen in June 2 4 to 4-^ inches, five in July 3^ to "j\ inches long. 

 We have various reliable descriptions of the numbers and kinds of 

 small fish taken in shrimp-trawling. At Plymouth I have never 

 seen large numbers of year-old soles taken in the small beam 



