464 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
All the specimens in the collection, exclusive of one, 5 millimeters long taken 
just inside Beaufort Inlet, were collected offshore. Those taken by the Fish Hawk 
in 1914 were mostly secured on the blackfish grounds, about 20 miles offshore, and 
the others taken in 1927 were collected near the shore, at the most not over 15 miles 
from Beaufort Inlet. 
It is evident, therefore, that the fry in the vicinity of Beaufort occur chiefly at 
sea where spawning no doubt takes place during the summer. Since the young 
sometimes were taken on the bottom, they probably are not as strictly pelagic as 
larger fish. Lewis Radcliffe, naturalist aboard the Fish Hawk in 1914, states in his 
notes, “Wherever sargassum weed makes its appearance they (young Seriola) may 
be found accompanying the weed and at such times are quite common.” Elsewhere 
(p. 459) it is stated that the adult amberfisli is caught at Key West chiefly by trolling. 
It is probable, therefore, that the fry are less strictly pelagic than the older fish. 
GROWTH AND FOOD 
Almost nothing concerning the rate of growth or the foods eaten appears to be 
contained in the literature. The present collection obviously is not extensive enough 
to yield much information on these subjects. Therefore, these phases of the life his- 
tory of the amberfish remain for future investigation. 
PARALICHTHYS DENTATUS (Linnaeus) and PARALICHTHYS ALBIGUT- 
TUS, Jordan and Gilbert. Summer flounder; southern flounder 
Three nominal species of summer flounders , 6 namely, Paralichthys dentatus 
P. albiguttus, and P. lethostigmus , are recorded from Beaufort, N. C. However, the 
present writers are unable to separate the representatives of this genus, occurring 
locally, into more than two groups (species ?), and not infrequently individuals are 
seen that are confounding and difficult to identify with either one of the groups into 
which most specimens are separable. The characters employed in identifying adult 
summer flounders, namely a combination of gill-raker and fin-ray counts and color 
markings, are not all developed in the young, or at least are so indefinite that they 
can not be seen clearly until a considerable size (about 20 to 25 millimeters, or even 
much larger for color markings) is attained. No characters have been found by 
means of which the young can be separated into species until the adult characters 
mentioned above are developed. It is for this reason that we are obliged to treat all 
the small Paralichthys at hand as one group. 
Although this paper is not intended to give a taxonomic account of the flounders, 
it seems desirable to show the close relationship of the locally represented forms as a 
guide to future investigators, in order that the reader may understand the difficulty 
involved in identifying these flounders, also to show more clearly why the young are 
treated as a single group in this paper. 
Considerable time was devoted to the study of the adults for the purpose of as- 
certaining definitely the number and relationship of the species represented and with 
the view of finding characters that could be used in identifying the larvae. In the 
latter object we failed; and as to the former, we found bewildering variations but no 
third species. In other words, two species, with certain doubtful intermediate as 
well as extreme specimens, certainly are present. One of these unquestionably is 
» These fish are known locally only as “flounders.” The designation “summer flounder” is used in the northern part of the 
range of Paralichthys in order to distinguish these fish from the “winter flounder” Pseudopleuronedes americanus. These desig- 
nations are used in this paper for the sake of convenience and to avoid the frequent repetition of the scientific names. 
