^8 AMREt>SK— -OZii riSHES OF .ST. MAEGAKET's BAY. 



itained even by tlie. large pot specially rocouimeuded by the 

 «ourtier Montaims, to the Emperor Domitian, for the accommo- 

 datiou of his extra-sized turb^t. And, alas ! for us, we have not 

 the art possessed by certain cooks of ancient times, who could 

 make a turbot or an ortolan out of hog's iiesh. In our earnest 

 desire to satisfy our British visitors, we may sigh in vain for the 

 wonderful skill of the cook of A'icomedes, king of Bith3'uia, 

 who when his master longed for a John Dory when he was at a 

 <ii5tance of three hundred miles from the sea, supplied him with 

 a fresh one within the hour. But. after all, better perhaps than 

 the lost art of counterfeiting turbot, is iinding the Nova Scotian 

 namesake of the real Simon Pure in our own waters. There is a 

 fish of this name, rather plentiful in the deep muddy ravines — 

 the home of the hake — off the mouth of our Bay. This fish is 

 considerably larger than the flounder, and readily takes the bait 

 thrown for cod, when the latter fish is not at hand to drive away 

 his mud-loving neighbour, — and a sure sign of the scarcity of 

 ,cod at any particular spot, is one of these turbot on the fisher- 

 man's hook. 



Our turbot. when full-sized, are about two feet in length. 

 They are always caught in deep water, say from 30 to 60 

 -fathoms. 



The Flounder, (.Platena plana,) 



Abounds on our coast, and a very nico yain lish he is. He 

 •spends the winter in moderately deep wnter, protected from the 

 frost, and finding abundance ul i-fud in the muddy bottom. 

 But when the sun's power begi;;s to be felt in the spring, the 

 flounder — with almost all the rest of our common shore-fish — 

 comes into shallower water, for light and heat are both required 

 for his summer-life and its occujiations. No fear has he of the 

 cruel spear which first stirs up the mud to attract his attention, 

 and excite his hopes of a tit-bit, and the next instant transfixes 

 and brings him helplessl}* flapping to the hand of the boy-fisher- 

 man, whose basket is soon filled for the clamorous swine. It is 

 hard to say who may be the enemies of the flounder during 

 winter, but one — the loon ( Colymbus glacialis) is at that season 

 frequently shot with flounders in his crop. 



