FLOUNDER-FISHES. 
425 
distinct, darker spots. When the tisli has been some 
time out of the water, the colour fades, and in the fish- 
markets we generally find this species of a light gray. 
I'he blind side is, as usual, white or bluish white. 
The Rough Dab is fairly common throughout the 
Cattegat, but is not taken in large numbers. It often 
enters the Sound, and, according to Mobius and Heingke, 
is of annual occurrence off Kiel, though it has never yet 
been found in the Baltic proper or even on the south 
coast of Scania. From the north of the Sound and the 
vicinity of Kullen it is brought every spring with other 
Flatfishes and exposed for sale in the market-place of 
Lund. On the coast of Jutland, according to Faber", it 
is more common, but in the island-belt of Bohuslan it 
is not taken very often. At Landskrona, according to 
Schagerstrom, it is called Horntunga ; at Kullen, accord- 
ing to Nilsson, Judepiga (Jutland-maid), or Stormun 
(Big-mouth); on the coast of Jutland, according to Faber, 
Haa-ising (Sea-flounder) or Skjcer-ising (Rock-flounder), 
and in other parts of Denmark, according to Gottsciie, 
Mareflynder (Sea-flounder), Tangens hoer-unge (Bastard 
Sole), Ucegte tunge (=the preceding name), Jydetunge 
(Jutland Sole) and Jydekjcerling (Jutland-hag). In Bohus- 
lan it is often called Sal a (Sole) or, according to Malm, 
Storgap (Big-mouth), Glib and Glibskadda, or is con- 
fused with Pleuronectes limanda under the name of Sand- 
skcidda. Near Christiania Lilljeborg heard it called 
Engelsman (Englishman). The geographical range of the 
species also embraces the whole of the North Sea and the 
north of the Atlantic up to the Arctic Ocean. It has 
never been found in the White Sea or further eastwards. 
To the south it grows rare even on the south coasts of 
Ireland and England, though, according to Day, numerous 
specimens are sometimes met with, as for instance in the 
summer of 1880, off Brixham. On the French coast it 
has never been found. 
lake the Dab, the Rough Dab is said generally to 
inhabit deeper water than the most common Scandina- 
vian Flatfishes (the Plaice and the Flounder), but scarcely 
anything more is known of its habits. In Bohuslan, ac- 
cording to Malm, it is taken “at a depth of from 12 to 
20 fathoms and generally on a clean sandy bottom” 
(though Kroyer states that off Hirsholm it prefers a 
muddy bottom) or sometimes “in seines, which are shot 
at a depth of 5 or 6 fathoms and hauled up on shore.” 
In winter, according to Suxdevall, it retires to a depth 
of 30 fathoms. 
The spawning-season of the Rough Dab was sup- 
posed by Suxdevall, and subsequently by Couch, to 
take place at the beginning of summer (May or June), 
an hypothesis which agrees with Nilsson’s more recent 
statement that at Kullen it is best in April and up to the 
middle of May. Kroyer, on the other hand, found Rough 
Dabs in September with the ovaries so well-developed 
that he assumed the spawning-season to occur in the 
middle of winter, while Malm quotes a statement of the 
fishermen of Bohuslan to the effect that “the roe runs in 
February and is spent by the month of March. ” We 
have no more trustworthy observations to rely on. 
Fhe food of the Rough Dab is composed of crusta- 
ceans, shellfish, starfish and small fishes. In its stomach 
and intestine Kroyer often found Gobius minufus , Sundis- 
vall shrimps ( Palcemon and My sis), Couch * 6 Turritella 
terebra and Hermit-crabs {Pag urns), and Gottsciie Ophi- 
urce. The intestine, abdominal cavity, and liver of the 
Rough Dab are very often infested with entozoa; and 
parasitic crustaceans are often found on its branchio- 
stegal membrane and branchial arches. 
In Scandinavia the Rough Dab is taken only oc- 
casionally, together with other Flatfishes and with the 
same tackle. As an article of food it is the least esteemed 
of all the Flatfishes. (Suxdevall, Smitt.) 
Subfamily B 0 T H I N A. 
Snout not elongated , lower jaw most prominent. Mouth middle-sized or large , only slightly or almost imperceptibly 
unsymmetrical; jaw-teeth almost as well-developed on the eye side as on the blind' side. Ventral Jin of the eye side 
set more or less exactly at the ventral margin , often in a straight line with the base of the anal fin. Pays of the 
ventral fins more or less separated at the base and attached to a forward process of the pelvic bones , whose shaft 
is directed downwards ■ Eyes large or middle-sized. Pseudobranchue and gill-rakers well- dev eloped. 
Up to this point we have traced one of the courses point, the most unsymmetrical forms, the Soles, to the 
of development of the family back from its culminating | Halibuts, which have adhered more closely to the sym- 
« Isis, 1828, p. 880. 
6 See Couch, Fish. Brit. Isl., vol. Ill, p. 153. 
54 
S cand i n a v i a n 1 • 'is lies. 
