REVIEW OF LOCAL FISH ES 95 



modified in adaptation to lying on the bottom. The eyes are both situ- 

 ated on one side of the body and the reverse or ciown side is colorless. 

 Four of our species have the eyes and color on the ri^ht side of the body. 

 The remaining six have them on tlie left side. 



Among the former, the Halibut is the only one which has a large 

 symmetrical mouth armed with conspicuous teeth and a concave tail 

 fin. The Halibut is a large northern fish which has never been more than 

 occasional in this vicinity in winter. Of late years, its numbers in the 

 Atlantic have been reduced and as a result it occurs near New York still 

 less frequent h'. 



The Halibut is one of the very largest of fishes, ordinary full-grown 

 examples weighing between 100 and 150 pounds. They rarely exceed 

 250 pounds, but there are several records from 300 to 400 pounds and 

 one from the coast of Sweden w^eighed 720 pounds. A fish taken off the 

 New^ England coast in 1917 must have been just about this same size. 

 It weighed between 600 and 700 pounds when dressed' and was nine 

 feet in length. 



The abundant Winter Flounder or ''Flatfish" is a right-handed 

 species with comparatively small and crooked mouth and a rounded 

 tail fin. Though there is a record for a twenty-inch Winter Flounder 

 weighing five pounds it is very rare to find them over fifteen inches long 

 and a pound and a half in Aveight. Flounders run very early in the spring 

 in the vicinity of New^ York, and are the first fish caught by rod and line 

 anglers from the city. They are abundant in most of our shallow^ or 

 muddy bays and accessible to many who have not a chance to angle for 

 other species. The Rusty Dab which replaces it in deeper water offshore, 

 resembles the Winter Flounder, but has the lateral fine arched over the 

 pectoral fin instead of being straight as in that species. In outline it is 

 concave over the ej^es, giving the effect of a protruding snout, and the 

 under surface, instead of uniform white, is margined with dull yellow 

 along the base of the dorsal and anal fins. The American Sole some- 

 times called "Hog-choker" has the mouth very small and crooked. Its 

 eyes are also small and it lacks a pectoral fin on the colored side. Its 

 scales are extremely rough and full-grown specimens usually have 

 rounded or oval blackish spots on the w^hite lower surface. The color 

 of the upper parts is also characteristic, with several narrow dark cross 

 streaks and a single central longitudinal one. This is our only repre- 

 sentative of the famous European Sole. It is of small size and worthless 

 for food. 



