THE FLAT-FISH FAMILY 



265 



to sink or rise as they please. They are not easily alarmed, 

 and when one tries to catch them, seldom attempt to escape, so 

 that they can be dipped up with a small vessel or the hand with 

 the greatest ease. Other flat-fishes in these stages are very 

 transparent, and therefore not easy to see in the water, but the 

 turbot and brill are opaque from a very early stage, from the 

 very commencement of the development of the fin-rays and 

 bones. The large size reached by these fish before the trans- 



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FIG. 124. Transition stage of Turbot, A inch long, from a preserved specimen ; after 



C. G. Joh. Petersen. 



formation is complete is also remarkable, the turbot being some- 

 times over an inch long before they remain on the bottom and 

 acquire the complete form and habits of the adult. It must not 

 be supposed that these fish in the process of transformation 

 swim upright like a fish whose two sides are alike. So long as 

 they are equal-sided, that is up to a length of about inch, 

 while the eyes are opposite to one another they do swim in that 

 position, but as the right eye begins to rotate the body is held in 

 a correspondingly slanting position, and when the eye reaches the 

 edge or upper (left) side of the head they swim with the body 



