PLATESSOIDEjE. 257 



sand-dab. " Our hooks and lines were generally overboard, but the only kind of 

 fish we caught was a sort greatly resembling a flounder, and called by the sailors 

 sand-dabs." Lewis and Clark say that a flounder, the same with the Atlantic 

 species, is well known at the mouth of the Columbia River, where it is often left 

 on the beach by the recess of the tide. The Indians eat it and think it very fine. 

 Mr. Collie saw a rhombus on the coast of California. 



[103.] 1. Pleuronectes (Platessa) stellatus. (Pallas.) 



Stellated flounder. 



Family, Platessoideae (Poissons ptats). Cuv. Genus, Pleuronectes. Linn. Sub-genus, Platessa. Cuv. 

 Pleuronectes stellatus. Pali.as, Nov. Act. Petrop., i. p. 347. An. 1783. Tii.esius, lib. cit., 



i., t. ix., f. l,p.387. An. 1787. 

 Cambala. Russians. Tanticu. Kurilians. 



In the sub-genus platessa, or the flounders, there is a row of obtuse cutting 

 teeth on each jaw, and most frequently some teeth en paves on the pharyngeal 

 bones ; the dorsal does not extend farther forward than the upper eye, and, like 

 the anal, it leaves a naked space between its termination and the caudal. The 

 flounders have a rhomboidal form, and in most the eyes are on the right side. 

 They have two or three small cseca. On Sir John Franklin's first expedition we 

 caught a flounder at the mouth of the Coppermine, and of several other rivers that 

 fall into the Arctic Sea. As the subjoined brief description, which was the only 

 memorial I could preserve of it, agrees pretty well with the published accounts 

 and figures of the pleuronectes stellatus of Pallas, I have considered it to be that 

 species. If this opinion be correct, the stellated flounder is most probably an 

 inhabitant of the Kamtschatdale seas, and of the whole north coast of America. 

 It is plentiful on the Kamtschatdale coast, near the mouths of rivers, and in shel- 

 tered bays, where it is most readily taken in May and June. In winter it is said 

 to buiy itself in the sand. It varies in size from ten to fourteen inches. Tilesius 

 says that it is distinguished from all other species by the black stripes on the fins, 

 and the forms of its tubercles or scales. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a recent specimen, taken July 16, 1821, off the Coppermine River, lat. 67^° N. 



Form. — Profile of the body broadly elliptical, terminated by a strap-shaped tail and a 

 caudal fin scolloped between the rays. Eyes on the left side, moderately large. Nostril* 



2l 



