OF FISH. 
279 
June, and July. The greatest fishery is at Gorgano, a 
i small isle west of Leghorn, where they are taken at 
night in nets, into which they are allured by lights fixed 
to the stern of the vessels. When cured, their heads are 
cut off, their gall and intrails taken out, then salted and 
packed in barrels. It scarce needs to be mentioned, 
that, being put on the fire, they dissolve in almost any 
liquor. They are well tasted when fresh. — But it has 
been found by experience, that anchovies taken thus by 
torch light, are neither so good, so firm; nor so proper 
for keeping, as those which are taken otherwise. 
Sole. This well known and delicious fish is remarka- 
ble for one very extraordinary circumstance; among va- 
rious other marine productions, they have been known 
to feed on shell-fish, although they are furnished with 
no apparatus whatever in their mouths for reducing them 
to a state calculated for digestion. But the most usual 
food for soles, is the spawn and young of other fish. 
These fish are found on all the British coasts; but 
those of the western shores are much superior in size 
to what are taken in the north, since they are sometimes 
found of the weight of six or seven pounds. The prin- 
cipal fishery for them is in Torbay. 
Turbot. (PL 48.) The turbot like some others of 
the flat-fish, grows to a great size. Flat-fish swim side 
ways, on which account they are styled pleuronectes by 
Linnaeus. The eyes of all of them are situated on one 
side of the head, and it is a curious circumstance, that 
while the under parts of their body are of a brilliant 
white, the upper parts are so coloured and speckled, as 
when they are half immersed in the sand or mud, to 
render them imperceptible. Of this resemblance they 
are so conscious, that whenever they find themselves in 
danger, they sink into the mud, and continue perfectly 
motionless. This is a circumstance so well known to 
fishermen, that within their palings on the strand they 
are often under the necessity of tracing furrows with a 
kind of iron sickle, to detect by the touch what they are 
not otherwise able to distinguish. 
The manner of fishing for turbot off the Yorkshire 
