Next to the turbot, the Sole is reckoned the most delicate of the flat-fishes. It inhabits the sandy shore all round our coast, where it keeps close to the bottom, indiscriminately feeding on smaller testaceous animals, crustacea, annelides, radiata, and the spawn and fry of other fishes. It is found northward as far as the Baltic and the seas of Scandinavia, and southward along the shores of Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean. The consumption is enormous, for Mr. Bertram informs us that no less than 100,000,000 soles are annually brought to the London market.[Q] They seldom take any bait, and are caught almost entirely by trawling. The principal fishing-ground in England is along the south coast from Sussex to Devonshire, where the soles are much larger and considered otherwise superior to those of the north and east. On the Devonshire coast, the great fishing-station is at Brixham in Torbay, where the boats, using large trawling nets from thirty to thirty-six feet in beam, produce a continual supply.
[Q] We are told by the same author ("Harvest of the Seas," Murray, 1866) that 500,000 cod-fish, 25,000,000 mackerel, 35,000,000 plaice, and 200,000,000 haddocks, &c., form the yearly supply of the metropolis, which, besides this immense number of white-fish, consumes 50,000,000 red herrings and 1,600,000 dried cod. These, with the addition of Molluscous shell-fish (oysters, &c.) to the amount of 920,000,000, and a daily demand for 10,000 lobsters during the season, afford an instructive indication of what must be the requirement of the whole population of the United Kingdom as regards fish food.
The Report of the Commissioners appointed in the year 1863 to enquire into the sea-fisheries of the United Kingdom gives us the gratifying intelligence that the number of fishermen in Great Britain has nearly doubled within the last twenty years, while the boats are increasing in number and size. No class of the population is said to be in a more flourishing condition; and this prosperity is no doubt mainly due to the railroads, which have opened throughout the whole kingdom a ready market for the produce of the seas. In Ireland, however, there has been a diminution of 10,583 boats and 52,127 men within the same time; a consequence of the famine of 1848, and subsequent emigration.
Plaice.
The Plaice and Flounder, though far inferior to the sole in quality, are still in great request as articles of food. On the English coast, the plaice are obtained in abundance on all sandy banks and muddy grounds, wherever either lines or trawl-nets can be used. On the sandy flats of the Solway Frith, they are taken by the fishermen and their families wading in the shoal water with bare feet. When a fish is felt, it is pressed by the foot firmly against the bottom until it can be secured by the hand and transferred to the basket. Long practice gives the dexterity which renders this kind of fishing successful.
In some parts of the North of Europe, where from the rocky nature of the soil the sea is remarkably transparent, plaice and some other flat-fish of large size are taken by dropping down upon them from a boat a doubly-barbed short spear, heavily leaded, to carry it with velocity to the bottom, with a line attached to it, by which the fish, when transfixed, is hauled up.
The Flounder.