432 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
from the first locality, and Malm 14 from Gullmar 
and the neighbouring waters and 2 from the island- 
belt of Gothenburg. The Royal Museum possesses two 
Scandinavian specimens, one, as we have mentioned, 
from Gullmar, and the other from the Skaw, where it 
was taken in 22 fathoms of water, on a clayey bottom. 
On other occasions the species has been found in shall- 
ower water, sometimes no more than 5 fathoms deep, 
and on a bottom of pure sand or sand mixed with 
clay. In Scandinavia the Megrim is usually taken in 
the seine, while fishing for Herrings and Sprats. A 
specimen was once received by Malm that “had been 
taken in a Flounder-net at a depth of 17 fathoms.' 5 
The food of the Megrim is probably of the same 
nature as that of the other small Flatfishes: crustaceans, 
mollusks, and lish. In the stomach of a Megrim 165 
mm. in length Collett found a Gobius minutus about 
63 mm. long. In the stomach of a female 138 mm. 
long Malm found two specimens of Aphya minuta, the 
larger 44 ram. in length. These circumstances indicate 
no little voracity. Again, the Megrim itself constantly 
falls a prey to all kinds of deep-sea fishes, and has 
been found in the stomach of the Cod and the Conger. 
The spawning-season of the Megrim occurs appa- 
rently in the summer-months, between May and August. 
At the end of June Collett took a female 162 mm. 
long that seemed to have already deposited its spawn. 
The two specimens that Esmark took in Christiania 
Fjord in May and at the beginning of June, 1863, 
were both gravid females. In one of these two speci- 
mens, according to Collett, the ovaries extended back 
to a point, the distance between which and the base of 
the caudal fin was only slightly more than the length 
of the head; and the number of the eggs was about 
50,000. Malm found specimens ready to spawn be- 
tween the 9th and 21st of August, 1861, off Kristine- 
berg; but he remarked that it was only towards the 
end of this period that the roe began to ripen and 
“run. 55 
As the Megrim is so small and thin, it can scar- 
cely be employed as human food in any other form 
than nonnat. In Venice, according to Ninni“, it is 
sold among other fish under the name of menuagyia. 
It might certainly be of some importance as bait; but 
in Scandinavia it is found far too seldom to be of any 
economical importance even in this respect. 
Genus BOTHUS. 
uniform size (without canines), pointed , recurved , small, and set in a card on the intermaxillary 
as in the lower jaw. Head of the vomer also furnished with small teeth; but, the palatine bones 
Lower pharyngeal teeth set in severed rows. Most of the fin-rays usually branched. Branchio- 
inferiorly free, at least in part, from each other, but meeting in different planes and crossing 
Median wall of the branchial cavity unbroken below the lower pliaryngeals. 
fin. Scales, when present, cycloid. Anal and preanal spines wanting. 
Jaw-teeth of 
bones as well 
and tongue smooth, 
stegal membranes 
each other. B ranch iostegal rays 7. 
Ventral fins free from the anal 
The name of Bothus — which, according to Ra- 
finesque, occurs even in Aristotle, but also reminds 
us of the French turbot, the German Butte and the 
Swedish Buttcf — was applied by Rafinesquf/ to a 
genus meant to represent Klein’s Bhombus and to be 
typified by Linnaeus’s Pleuronectes rhombus. As Klein’s 
Rhombus, however, is an ante-Linmean name which 
Lacepede has transferred to another genus d , the name 
given the genus by Rafinesque claims precedence, 
though it must be regarded as partly synonymous with 
the preceding genus, for which it was employed by 
Bonaparte. 
Only three species of Bothus are known, which 
belong to the north of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, 
and the Black Sea. One of these species, the North 
American Bothus maculatus, is so thin and transparent 
a Espos. Int. di Pesca in Berlino 1880, Sez. Ital . , Cat., p. 180. 
b Agassiz ( Nomenclator ) endeavoured to explain this name by the Greek pdhog, depth. 
'' Caratteri di alcuui nuovi generi etc. (1810), p. 23. 
d Artedi’s Stromateus. 
