96 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



not in pounds, but in hundredweights. Even the flounder, 

 which has the best claim in this family to be reckoned as a 

 river-fish, is better known as a sea-fish ; but it often ascends 

 rivers considerably beyond the influence of the tide. Before 

 pollution closed the estuary of the Thames to the ascent of 

 sea-fish, flounders were taken in large numbers as high as 

 the navigation weirs would allow them to go — namely, at 

 Teddington and Sunbury. It is a tradition that under 

 Westminster Bridge was once a favourite pitch for them. 

 The rivers of Holland and Belgium abound in flounders, 

 which wander so far up the Scheldt and its tributaries as to 

 appear in the neighbourhood of a place with few maritime 

 associations — namely, Waterloo. The migration of the 

 flounder, unlike that of salmon and eels, does not appear 

 to be connected with reproductive purposes, nor is it regularly 

 seasonal. Probably food and refuge are the determining 

 motives, and the ascent of young eels in myriads from the 

 sea no doubt induce flounders to follow them. 



\x\ regard to the common name for this fish, there is no 

 reason to search for an origin more remote than the obvious 

 one of a creature that flounders and flaps about when caught ; 

 and perhaps the same idea is conveyed in the synonym " fluke," 

 which is the older name for the fish in this country, being 

 from the Anglo-Saxon fioc (iElfric, loth century). It is to be 

 noted that in the Solway district the name of flounder is applied 

 popularly to the more excellent plaice. 



In aspect this fish is the reverse of imposing. Most 

 countenances would suffer in expression by the transplantation 

 of the left eye to the right part of the forehead, and 

 *to this the flounder offers no exception. Moreover, 

 the severe lateral compression which the figure of the animal 

 has undergone has increased its breadth to the proportion of 

 two- thirds of the entire length, which must be pronounced 

 detrimental to elegance. The expanse of flat side thus created 

 affords a fine field for the display of startling colours in which 



