The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-09-10
THE FOUNDER.
How the Under Eye Works Its WAY to tho

Top SIDE.
Some of you NAV have heard the say
ing Gas fat as founder" and have not
stopped to think. What / wish to tell
you is why this fish is fat and what
happens because it is fat.
If you have ever seen one in market
OF elsewhere. you know that the upper
and under parts of its body are of diff
ferent colors, and that its two eyes are,
strangely enough, both on the same
side of the head. If you were to see
one in the water you would notice that
it swan not upright. as other fish swim,
but lying over on one side, with its eyes
on top.
Now all these things-the flatness.
the two eyes together, the twisted
mouth. the different colored sides, the
peculiar swimming-come from the
fact that the founder is not and never
has been an overbrave fish. We can not
blame the poor creatures much, be-
cause they have no way to de-
fend themselves as swordfish and
some others have. Their neigh
bors enjoy eating them. They
know that they are weak, and so they
took, ages ago, to hidinng at the bot
tom of the water. This has been done
SO long that now they have actually
lost the power to come to the surface
Other fish rise and sink by means of an
air bladder. Those of our friends that
used theirs and rose were pounced upon
and eaten. The poor scared ones that
hid at the bottom and saved their lives
had no need of the rising apparatus,
and now. as is always the case when an
organ is not used, they have lost it.
But when the founder took to his
hiding place at the bottom he did not
settle himself at all comfortably, &C
cording to our ideas of fish comfort
Instead of an upright position, with
the two sides equally up, he chose for
some reason to lie over entirely on
one of them, with the other
side up. This position accounts for
the differently colored sides. That on
which he lay was protected always from
the sunlight and lost its color. The
upper has come to be the color of the
bottom on which he lives, be that
color what it may. That it should be
SO is not SO strange as it seems. A
bright founder shining on dark bot
tom is easily seen by its enemies, and
seized and eaten. The same would be
true of dark fish in bright coral
house. Those who lived to have fami-
lies of their own were those whose
color was most like the color of their
home. Only the dullest color was
transmitted, and SO, the world over,
members of this family are the color of
sand, or mud. or gravel, or shell, or
coral, according to the place of their
abode. Some are even knotted and
rough in way that makes them won
derfully like their home. We find,
for the same reason, arctic animals
white like snow and desert insects the
color of sand
Another result of the fatness of this
flatfish family to which the founder
belongs is that its eyes are both on the
top of its head. We can best see how
they have got together, and how other
changes have taken place, by noticing
the growth of young founder. In
the very beginning of its existence the
baby fish is a clear, transparent little
thing. It's two eyes are where we'll
regulated eyes should be, on opposite
sides of the head, and it swims vertical
ly in the water, as do other fish. But
in few days the influence of a long
line of founder ancestry is felt. He,
too, takes to lying on one side, gener-
orally, but not always, the left. The
exposed skin darkens. In this position
the view of the under eye is somewhat
limited, and it squints upward toward
larger one. 1t begins to move; it
turns the corner and comes to the top.
There it takes a stand The mouth
twists upward and the young fish swims
along sidewise on the bottom.-Har-
ner'S YOunp People,