444 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
The relation between the Turbot and the Brill is 
further illustrated by the form which has received of 
Malm the specific name of hybridus. We have already 
remarked the existence of hybrids of the Turbot and 
Brill. Quelch states" that such specimens are taken 
in spring on the Dutch coast, but that they are fairly 
rare. “They resemble the turbot in shape, but the 
head is like the brill. They have neither the spiny 
protuberances of the turbot nor the scales of the brill, 
but are thickly covered with small horny plates, a sort 
of compromise between the two.” Moreau’s variety 
of the Brill from the Mediterranean (1. c., p. 342) is 
also an intermediate form, which may most naturally 
be explained on the assumption of hybridism. In this 
form not only are the anterior rays of the dorsal tin 
less ramified than in the typical Brill, but the length 
of the upper jaw, according to Moreau’s measurements, 
is also more than 12 % of the length of the body, a 
character which we have invariably found to belong 
to the Turbot/'. A number of intermediate forms, 
varying in their degrees of resemblance, one more like 
the Turbot and another more like the Brill, may thus 
be assumed to exist; and at least two have been met 
with within the limits of the Scandinavian fauna. 
THE BRILL-LIKE TURBOT. BOTHUS MAXIMUS HYBRIDUS. 
Fig. 113. 
Fig. 113. Botlms maximus hybridus , cf 1 , 2 / 3 of the natural size. Taken at a depth of 20 fathoms in Stromstad Fjord, 
on the 21st of May, 1887, by C. A. Hansson. 
“ Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1869, p. 473. 
5 Eksteom's description of the Baltic Turbot with 69 rays in the dorsal tin and 49 in the anal can hardly be explained in this manner, 
for the Brill has never been met with so far up the Baltic. 
