438 
SCANDINAVIAN FISIIKS. 
small, ascending, dorsal branch, or the curved part, in 
addition to its straight continuation, may send out a 
ventral branch which descends behind and below the 
pectoral fin, but at once bends up again in a curve 
towards the hind (lower) angle of the pectoral fin. In 
the latter case three distinct ventral branches of the 
lateral line may descend from the bottom of this curve, 
but they bend so sharply forward that when they unite 
below, this takes place close to the vent". 
The internal organs in essential respects are the 
same as in most of the Flatfishes, but the intestinal 
canal is comparatively short. In accordance with the 
form of the body the abdominal cavity is also deep and 
short, its length being about 1 / 6 , but its depth about 
1 / 4 , of the length of the body. The liver is compara- 
tively small and scarcely fills the upper half of the left 
side of the abdominal cavity. Neither externally nor 
internally is there any marked division between the 
oesophagus and the stomach. The former runs straight 
back along the dorsal margin of the abdominal cavity 
to the point where the stomach bends straight down, 
almost at right angles to it. In this angle, however, 
the large longitudinal folds of the mucous membrane 
on the inner wall of the stomach reach their highest 
point of development, being even longitudinally divided 
in two, and thus giving us reason to assume the pre- 
sence of a kind of cardia. At its lower end the sto- 
mach resembles a blind sac and is somewhat enlarged, 
but from this wider part it sends out in front, straight 
upwards, a narrower pyloric part which is sharply di- 
vided from the intestine, to which are attached two 
short but thick appendages, which fall back in a more 
or less sharp curve over the pylorus. A double coil 
of the intestine lies in front of the stomach, and the 
thick rectum coasts the front side of the pyloric part 
and the bottom of the stomach. Secondary abdominal 
cavities occur only in the females; but they extend far 
back, along the interhseinal spines of the anal fin. In 
a female 53 cm. long the two ovaries are almost equally 
long, their length from the genital opening being about 
24 cm., and 14 cm. of this length lying behind the 
extreme end of the abdominal cavity. At the bottom 
of the abdominal cavity the ovaries are united to each 
other; and the urinary bladder lies between and behind 
their upper parts in the abdominal cavity. 
The coloration of the eye side is extremely variable. 
Not only are the fry known for their great power of 
adapting their colour with comparative rapidity to the 
general colour and light of their environments; but 
even older specimens occur of lighter or darker shades, 
spotted or of uniform colour. The ground-colour is 
gray; but in the darker specimens this shades into 
brown or blackish brown, in the lighter ones to yellow 
or olive-green. Thus, we now find grayish brown Tur- 
bots with darker markings on the body, or specimens 
of a more unvaried, blackish brown colour, and with 
spots on the fins, as shown in v. Weight’s figure, now 
grayish, greenish yellow ones, as we see them in the 
figures of Couch* and Sundman c . The blind side is, 
as usual, white or sometimes marked with irregular 
spots except in the double specimens, which also occur 
in this species, and in the fry, where the blind side is 
more or less nearly of the same colour as the eye side. 
The Turbot in all probability occurs in fairly high 
northern latitudes. It is taken even among the Lofoden 
Islands, though only seldom. Its true habitat, where 
it is of more frequent occurrence, extends from the 
vicinity of Bergen to the Mediterranean; and as we 
have mentioned, it also enters the Black Sea, as well 
as the Baltic, where it is met with up to the district 
o 
of Bjorneborg, though only seldom north of Alands 
Haf. It is not common off Stockholm, but fairly large 
specimens are taken now and then in the island-belt, 
where Baron Cederstrom saw a specimen 27 2 kgm. in 
weight off Holo outside Vermdo, in August, 1852 d . 
In the island-belt of Morko, according to Ekstrom, the 
Turbot sometimes attains a weight of 2 1 / 2 or 3 kgm., 
though it is not common there either. According to 
Seidlitz * 6 it occurs along the whole coast of the Baltic 
Provinces of Russia. According to Benecke 7 the Tur- 
bot is apparently not rare on the Prussian coast, where 
it is said to prefer spots near the mouths of rivers, 
and sometimes to enter the rivers as well as the 
lagoons or Huffs • On the east coast of Scania it is 
a Another, less intricate ramification of the lateral line at this point is described by Kr0yeu, Danm. Fiske, vol. 2, p. 436. 
6 Fish. Brit. Isl., pi. CLXI. 
<■ Finl. Fisl-ar , pi. XXII. 
d SUNDEVALL, 1. C., p. 165. 
e Fauna baltica , p. 117. 
■ f Fish., Fischer., Fischz. TV. u. 0. Preass., p. 95. 
