Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/809

COD T93 The color of the back in the living fish is a light olive-green, becoming pale ash in dead specimens, covered with numerous reddish or yellowish spots to a short distance below the lateral line ; beneath it is dusky white. The color of this species, however, is variable ; some are of a greenish brown hue with few spots ; oth- ers, called rock cod, are of a bright red color ; some are very dark, others very light and greenish. This species grows to a great size; the largest specimen alluded to by Dr. Storer, in his "Report on the Fisheries of Massachusetts," weighed 107 Ibs. ; the average weight is about 8 Ibs. The common or bank cod (M. vulgaris, Linn.), well known the world over as an arti- cle of food, is taken on the Grand bank, in the deep water off the coast of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Labrador, and indeed is met with from the coast of Maine to lat. 67 N. It is a thick, heavy fish, sometimes attaining a weight of 90 Ibs. The color varies considera- bly, but is generally a greenish brown, fading into ash in the dead fish, with numerous reddish yellow spots; the belly is silvery opaque white, the fins pale green, and the lateral line dead white. A third species, the tomcod (M. tom- codm, Mitchill), is found along the American coast from New York northwardly to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, at all seasons of the year ; it frequently ascends rivers. It va- ries in length from 6 to 12 inches. The colors also vary exceedingly, being generally brown- ish above with spots of a darker hue, and lighter beneath. The tomcod is caught from wharves and bridges by almost any bait; in the winter large numbers are taken in dip nets at the months of rivers. The cod is abundant along the N. Pacific coast, particu- larly in the region of Alaska. It also swarms along the W. and N. shores of Norway, in the Baltic, off the Orkney and Western islands, and on the S. and W. coasts of Iceland. It is an exceedingly voracious fish, devouring indis- criminately everything in its way in the shape of small fish, Crustacea, and marine worms and shell fish. Indeed, the cod is the great collector of deep-sea specimens, otherwise un- attainable; and many are the specimens of rare and new shells which naturalists have obtained from its capacious stomach. The cod is very prolific. A cod roe has more than once been found to be half the gross weight of the fish ; and specimens of the female have been caught with upward of 8,000,000 eggs. "Were all these to come to maturity, a pair of cod would in a few years fill the ocean ; but only a portion of the eggs are fertilized, and only a small percentage of the fish ever ar- rives at maturity. The cod spawns in mid- winter, but its habits have not been observed with sufficient accuracy to determine when it becomes reproductive. The best authorities hold that it is an animal of slow growth, and that it is at least three years old before it is able to propagate. A question of great interest is, whether it is possible by over-fishing to ex- haust the cod fisheries either partially or en- tirely ? As yet no serious impression appears to have been made on the bank fishery, after 3^ centuries of ceaseless fishing. The same, however, cannot be asserted in regard to the shore fishery, at least at certain points ; and the frequent complaints of late years of the scarcity of fish in certain bays, as compared with former times, and the numerous failures in the summer fishery, awaken the suspicion that the perpetual drafts, year after year, without any interval for recruiting, have seri- ously reduced the number of codfish in certain localities. The scarcity of cod in Conception and Trinity bays, and other places, of late years, as compared with former times, is gen- erally allowed ; and the bulk of the population of these bays now proceed to Labrador for their summer fishing. The theory of the mi- gration of fish, once a general notion, is now known to be a popular delusion, and has been abandoned by all scientific naturalists. The migratory instinct in fish is ascertained to be very limited, merely leading them to move about a little from their feeding ground to their spawning ground from deep to shallow water. In fact there are in the world of wa- ters great fish colonies, as there are great seats of population on land ; and these colonies are stationary, having comparatively but a lim- ited range of water in which to live and die. All around the shores of Newfoundland are numerous banks, or submarine elevations, of greater or less extent, which constitute the feeding and breeding grounds of the cod ; and each of these has its own fish colony that live and die within a limited range of their own habitat. They do not intermingle with other colonies or invade their domains. This is proved by the well known fact that the cod of different localities are marked by distinctive features and qualities; the cod, for example, of Placentia bay being quite distinguishable from that taken in Bonavista bay. So, too, the vast fish colonies of the great banks, at a con- siderable distance from the shores, differ from shore fish, being larger and finer, and, except a few adventurous individuals that roam from home, are not found at any distance from the place of their birth. The bank and shore fish keep to their respective homes. If heavy drafts are made on the smaller colonies around the shores and in the bays, in the course of years these will become seriously diminished in numbers. Facts seem to indicate that this is the case in many localities at present. The average catch of codfish now is not greater than it was 50 years ago, though many thou- sand more hands are now engaged in fishing. Cod fishing is an important branch of indus- try, the Koman Catholic countries of Europe, South America, and the West Indies furnishing a ready market. The great resort of the American, Nova Scotian, and French fisher- men is the Grand bank of Newfoundland, and the banks E. and S. E. of Nova Scotia, which