172 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



as if he might have once been a fish of re- 

 spectable, perhaps even| beautiful shape and pro- 

 portions, that had met with an accident. He is 

 a shore frequenter, especially when young, and 

 I cannot help thinking that in antediluvian days 

 when mastodons were plentiful and went wading 

 they stepped on the flounders. A flounder is 

 shaped just as if he had been run over by an 

 Atlantic avenue truck. His eyes moved over 

 onto one side of his head, fleeing hand in hand to 

 escape the wheel. His mouth was mashed fairly 

 and seems to be perpetually ejaculating "Help, 

 murder!" and one side of him is still white as 

 snow with the fear of the affair. He ought to 

 be in a cripples' home, but he is not. Instead he 

 is as jolly as a sand man and amply able to take 

 care of his wreck of a body, which is flat indeed 

 but fat. Necessity is the mother of invention. 

 When the flounder sees food that he wants he 

 falls upon it and holds it down with ease while 

 he devours it. A slender fish would have no such 

 chance. 



At this time of year come roving northward 

 from unknown feeding grounds outside the Cape 

 the haddock. There are people who call the had- 

 dock "scoodled skull-joe," probably in derision 



