THE FLAT FISHES AND FLOUNDERS. 175 



1.— THE FLAT FISHES AND FLOUNDERS. 



55. THE AMERICAN SOLES— SOLEIDiE. 



Ameeican Soles. — The much-prized Sole of Europe, Solea vulgaris, does not occur in the 

 Western Atlantic, although attempts have been made to introduce it, and in 1877 two individuals 

 were set free in Massachusetts Bay by the United States Commission of Fisheries. Its nearest 

 representative, the American Sole, is found along our coast from Boston and Nahant to the mouth 

 of the Mississippi River. It occurs in all of the rivers south of the Susquehanna, and is taken in 

 great numbers in the shad seines. It rarely attains a greater length than six inches, and, though 

 edible, is never eaten, and it must be regarded as of extremely small importance. There are also 

 two or three other fishes belonging to this family in our Southern waters which are insignificant 

 in size and of no importance whatever. 



Aphoristia atricauda is a very small species of Sole, the only genuine representative of the 

 European Sole on our Pacific coast. It reaches a length of six inches, and is occasionally taken 

 in San Diego Bay. It has no economic value. 



TuEBOT AND SoLE IN Ameeica. — A Philadelphia writer has lately tried in the news- 

 papers to revive the long-obsolete belief that the Turbot and Sole of Europe occur on our coast. 

 Although he has never seen them himself, and fails to bring forward evidence that any one else 

 has seen them, he insists that they occur in the greatest abundance in New Jersey, particularly 

 in the vicinity of Atlantic City, "and doubtless all along the Atlantic coast from Portsmouth, N. 

 H., to Wilmington, S. C." {sic). He upbraids the American public for their incredulity, though 

 this does not surprise him so much when he calls to mind that " our Government Fish Commissioner 

 has actually contemplated sending a steamer to English waters to procure turbot-seed to plant 

 along our shores." He would not be surprised if incredulity were to continue longer " under such 

 official indorsement." He accounts for the ignorance regarding them by the theory that the 

 English trawl-net is unknown in America, and that our fishermen would not know how to catch 

 such fish if they were aware of their presence, and have not become aware of their presence 

 because they have no means of catching them. He intimates that he is preparing to form a 

 company for the purpose of developing a turbot fishery upon our coast; an enterprise "in which 

 but little will be risked, and the results will be a surprise to all." He closed one of his letters to 

 a New York journal with the following appeal : " I trust that you will not let this question subside, 

 but persevere in calling attention to it until we do away with the extraordinary anomaly of this 

 enlightened nation being within reach of treasure that for more than a century they have been 

 unaware of, and have remained persistently blind to." 



All this is very entertaining, and furnishes a neat text for a few remarks on the history of 

 this belief, as well as an opportunity for demonstrating to the public a fact which has for forty years 

 or more been known to ichthyologists, that the Turbot and the Sole never have been seen on the 

 western side of the Atlantic, and never will be, unless they are introduced by artificial means. 



From the beginning to the end we encounter the well-known sources of confusion — the giving of 

 old-world names to species which resemble in a general way the old-world species which bear them, 

 and the unquestioning acceptance of these names as authoritative, by persons who are not trained 

 to close discrimination. 



