FLAT-FISHES. 
259 
however, retained one mussel in the basin, and 
offered it to the Cod, in order to see how, with 
its broad mouth and short tongue, it would reach 
it. The Cod blew into the basin (a small slop- 
basin), and the re-action forced the mussel out of 
it, and the Cod seized it immediately. This fish 
allowed me to pat it on the back, and rested its 
head upon the stone on which I was standing, just 
like a dog. The other fish came to me and fed 
on the mussels I threw to them, but would not 
let me handle them, though I patted some of 
them.”^ 
The analogous case of the Elephant that blew 
the sixpence out of the angle of the shelf on 
which it was placed, when it was too close to the 
wall to admit the finger of his trunk, will doubt- 
less occur to many of our readers. We are, how- 
ever, much more surprised to hear of such an 
effort of reasoning power in a Cod-fish than in an 
Elephant. 
Family VII. Pleuronectid^. 
(Flat-fishes.) 
The Turbot, the Sole, and the Flounder, are 
so familiar to every one, as the commonest fishes 
at our tables, that probably few think of the 
extraordinary anomaly presented by their struc- 
ture, or remember that they are perfectly unique 
among vertebrate animals. We see that one side 
is dark and positively coloured, the other is white 
or slightly tinged with a fleshy hue, and we are 
apt to suppose that they ofier no greater pecu- 
* Scenes of Country Life, 62. 
