TURBOT. 
159 
It is requisite to successful fislieiy for Turbots with a line 
that the bait shall be newly killed; and a living bait is stiU 
more attractive, for this fish is not a little ravenous, and if 
it chance to escajpe from the hook, it will again and again 
encounter the same risk. On one occasion a Grey Gurnard 
had swallowed the bait, when it was itself seized by a Turbot, 
which, in passing it into its stomach, head foremost, sufi'ered 
the mischance of having the spines of its prey to become fixed 
in its gullet, so that both of these fishes were drawn up 
together. Crabs and shell-fish also form part of its food, and 
indeed it appears that little which has life is rejected. 
The trawl in the west and south of England is extensively 
used for the taking of Turbots, as it is indeed for obtaining 
every sort of fish l.flat falls within the sweep of its net; but 
more especially it is successful for those of the Pleuronectidce. 
But the fishes are bruised, and for the most part greatly 
injured in this method of fishing, — as may be imagined, when 
we call to mind that they are dragged along on the ground 
for a considerable distance, amidst an accumulation of whatever 
heavy substances may come in the way. This fish is retentive 
of life, so that it will remain a whole day alive after being 
caught; and yet when brought to Billingsgate they are sometimes 
so much decayed as to be unfit for food. 
By an Act of Parliament, (1st. George I., C. 28,) a Turbot 
is forbidden to be sold when under the length of sixteen 
inches. Brill or Pearl fourteen inches. Codling twelve, Whiting 
six, Bass and Mullet twelve. Sole eight, Plaise or Dab six. 
Flounder seven; but there is no penalty for catching them of 
less size than is here specified, and consequently the prohibition 
itself affords no advantage towards what appears to have been 
intended by it. 
The breadth of the body of this fish is contained once and 
three fifths in the whole length, excluding the tail fin; and 
consequently it is wider proportionally than any other of the 
British flatfishes, except those much smaller species the Topknots; 
and from this greater breadth and more rounded form it has 
received in Scotland the name of Bannock, or Cake Fluke. 
The gape is wide, opening obliquely downward, with a 
mystache which reaches opposite the anterior eye; the eyes 
separate, the lowermost a little in advance; a flat projecting 
