324 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



usually Nereids, and the latter are often Sabella and 

 Pectinaria. Ophiurids afford a very exceptional food for 

 the plaice. Once or twice Echinocyamus pusilla was 

 found, but in association with other animals, usually 

 lamellibranchs. The commoner lamellibranchs are, of 

 course, those eaten by the plaice. The following table 

 represents the order of abundance in which these animals 

 occurred in plaice stomachs : — 



Solen 



Solen-|-Mactra .. 

 Solen -f-Nucula.. 

 Solen +Scrobi-) 

 cularia j 

 Scrobicularia ... 

 ,, +Nucula.. 



Nucula 



Mactra 



• •• 

 I 



Fig. 24. Food of plaice. 



The distribution of plaice and dabs, considered as a 

 bionomic problem is, of course, one which would require 

 much more patient and serious investigation than we 

 have yet been able to attempt. In the consideration of 

 the commoner food animals eaten by each species there is, 

 however, a probable explanation of the comparative 

 ubiquity of the dab as compared with the plaice. The 

 latter is much more fastidious in its tastes than the dab, 

 and when the common bivalve molluscs, which it always 

 prefers, are not present on a fishing ground, or are sanded 

 up, or disappear from any other cause, the plaice deserts 

 this ground in favour of others where these molluscs'' are 

 to be found. So we find that a " strike," or settlement 

 of the spat of mussels, or other lamellibranchs on any 

 fishing ground is often followed by an extensive immigra- 

 tion of plaice to this spot. Fishermen credit the plaice 

 with the possession of some occult power of detecting the 



