160 
TURBOT. 
spine covering a portion of the upper jawj under jaw longest; 
teeth placed thickly in several rows, and a row also in the 
palate. Lateral line arched over the pectoral fin, and thence 
straight to the tail; upper or coloured side without scales, but 
irregularly covered with stout bony tubercles; on the mystache, 
round the eyes and the gill-covcrs, are tliickly-set small bossed 
points. The tubercles on the body have not yet appeared in 
very young examples, and they appear to be less in niunber 
in examples which seemed to be of advanced age. The 
dorsal fin begins in front of the eyes, and, with the anal, 
passes oil close to the tail; the tail round. Ventral fins close 
under the tlu-oat, and nearly jouied to the anal. The hindmost 
nasal orifice on the blind side, bordered posteriorly with a 
loose membrane. The colour varies in intensity, from light 
brown to almost black; and in an example that was intensely 
black, both sides were alike coloured, mottled and sprinkled 
over with dots of darker and white, as if with sand. The fin 
rays are wide: in the dorsal sixty-eight; anal forty -eight to 
fifty-nine; pectoral ten; caudal fifteen to seventeen; ventrals 
five on the coloured side, six below, the first of the latter 
answering to the second above. 
