HOLIBUT. 
151 
followed only when the spring is well advanced and the nights 
are clear; at which time the fish are discovered as they lie 
at the bottom, even where the water is deep; but as summer 
advances the search is given up, because, as this fish becomes 
very fat, the heat of the weather would prevent its flesh from 
being properly dried in the manner they are accustomed to 
prepare it. Each portion of this dried fish has its separate 
name among the people, of whose subsistence, as well as of 
their commerce, it forms a considerable part. The skin, and 
even the entrails are also regarded as of value by a people 
who, from the scarcity or cost of other materials are led to 
employ these parts for purposes which in more favoured regions 
were better answered by other means. Perhaps there is no 
portion of the ocean in which the Ilolibut is more abundant 
than on the banks of Newfoundland, and it is there we have 
heard of its being taken of much larger bulk than is usual 
elsewhere; perhaps from the abundance of congenial food, for 
which its appetite is represented as being very keen, as its power 
of swallowing is also great; so that it is able to gulp down fishes 
of considerable size, as well as crabs and shellfish. It spawns 
in the spring. 
The Plolibut is by far the largest of the Flatfishes; so that 
in some rare instances it seems scarcely an exaggeration in 
Lacepede to compare it in size with a whale; especially if we 
are to suppose the comparison to be made with reference to 
other species of the same family. The largest I have seer, 
weighed no more than one hundred and twenty-four pounds; 
but Pennant mentions an example that weighed three hundred 
pounds, and one which was caught near the Isle of Man in 
April, 1828, measured seven feet and six inches in length, with 
the breadth of thi-ee feet and six inches, and in weight was 
three hundred and twenty pounds. This, however, is little 
more than half the weight of one that is reported to have been 
taken in Iceland; but which again must have been considerably 
less than an example mentioned by Olafson, which measured 
but little short of twenty feet in length. I have also been 
informed by an officer of the navy that he was present at the 
capture, on the banks of N ewfoundland, of a Holibut which 
greatly exceeded in size even the example mentioned by 
Olafson. 
