Plaice

Plaice (Pluronectes platessa), a common flat-fish in the same genus as the flounder. It usually inhabits sandy and muddy banks off the European coasts from France to Iceland. Like the flounder, it may pass from estuaries into rivers, and can even thrive in fresh-water ponds. It often lies slightly covered with sand, but with the eyes exposed and watchful for prey. The food consists of molluscs, crustaceans, and worms, but especially of the first. It spawns in early spring, and is in best condition about the end of May. It was once a common belief that shrimps were the parents of plaice! The plaice is taken both by lines and trawl-nets, is in considerable esteem for the table, and is plentiful in the British markets. Those from sandy ground are said to be much more palatable than those from the mud. Compared with the flounder, the plaice is rather broader in proportion to its length. The general size weighs about 2 to 3 pounds, but much larger specimens are often caught; the coloured side is predominantly olive-brown with orange spots, but the colour changes rapidly in precise harmony with that of the ground on which the fish rests; six blunt tubercles extend from the eye to the beginning of the lateral line, which has an almost straight course.