GADEANS AND PLEURONECTS. 365 



quire an increment of weight twice that of their saline 

 cousins. With regard to the origin of soles, the strange 

 position has heen advanced that they spring from prawns ; 

 to prove the correctness of this absurdity, a noted French 

 free-thinker having produced a supply, kept them in sea- 

 water, and obtained, in due time, a handsome fry of 

 young soles, begotten, as he gave out and believed, in 

 the body of these crustaceans. Assuming the fact to 

 have been correctly reported, the natural explanation 

 would be, that the eggs of the sole, which are viscid, and 

 readily attach themselves to different bodies, happening 

 to do so in this instance to prawns, were hatched on their 

 persons, as they would, under favourable conditions, 

 have been anywhere else without any help from these 

 shell-fish. 



No fish in the ancient world was better known, or in 

 higher repute than this. It was the subject of a Greek 

 myth:* evrpotpo'} and ^Sv?, ^nutritious and delicate,' 

 were the epithets currently applied to it, and one Greek 

 in particular describes it as the best of flat-fish; the 

 highest praise, since these were considered the ' pesci no- 

 bUi' of the market, and therefore equivalent to saying 



* The fertile fancy of the Greeks suggested them aa fit sandals 

 for Ocean Nymphs; a use to which the variety of their size and 

 shape, and theh strong adhesiveness, must have well adapted 

 them. 



SaySaXa 6' av Trapedrjuev decyevrj aQavaTawv 

 ^ovyXoxra-oVf bs evaiev Iv dXfirj fxopjxvpovfrr). 



They served those ' sandals' of the foamy sea 

 Which nimble Nereids, sent on errands fleet, 

 Apply protective to their tender feet. 



A slave in Plautus, hearing some one order soles, says, in allusion 

 to the name and the supposed use made by these nymphs of their 

 slipper-fish, ' Qui quseso potius soleas quam sculponeas, quibus 

 batuatur tibi os senex nequissime.' 



