5^0 APPENDIX. IV. 



be found among those enumerated by Dr. 

 Gmelin in the last edition of the Syst. Nat. ; 

 and the two last mentioned species are not 

 referrable with certainty to any description 

 known to me. 



The Pleuronectes punctatus (Targeur of 

 Block) is now for the first time introduced as 

 a British species ; the specimen from which 

 the drawing was taken, was caught near Ply- 

 mouth, where, and on the coast of Cornwall 

 also, they sometimes, though rarely, make their 

 appearance. The error committed by Block, 

 and not detected by Dr. Gmelin, in considering 

 this species as synonymous with the Whiffe 

 of Jago and Pennant, is now rendered still 

 more evident. 



The genus Pleuronectes ranks with those 

 which present the most natural assemblage of 

 species, its boundaries are as distinctly marked 

 as those of any natural order. Its singular 

 structure accords with its habits and economy, 

 as contrivance does with use in the other parts 

 of the works of nature ; the flat form, the situ- 

 ation of the eyes, and the absence of the air 

 bladder, sufficiently point out the part of the 

 ocean it is destined to inhabit : all the species 

 reside at the sandy bottoms either of the sea or 

 of the estuaries of the larger rivers, embedded 



