214 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



hundred individuals showed four-fifths of all to be entirely empty, while a greater part of the 

 remainder contained only bait picked from the trawls of the fishermen. A small number contained 

 fish of one or more species that had probably been captured in the locality, while a few scattering 

 invertebrates were found. Of the species mentioned as abundant on the grounds, not a star-fish 

 and but two shells of one species and one of the other were found. But it was clearly shown that 

 the fish would not refuse food, for often the stomachs were well filled with bait picked from the 

 trawl before the fish were hooked. From ten to fifteen pieces were frequently found, and in one 

 case eighteen were counted. 



"The females when fully ripe seemed less willing to feed than at other times, and few were 

 caught with the moving haud-liues ; but when the trawl was used, thus leaving the bait motionless 

 on the bottom for hours at a time, they were induced to bite, and many were taken with the eggs 

 running from them. Ripe males seemed to bite readily at any time. 



"The young fish, as has been remarked, seems to spend the first three or four years of its life 

 in shoal water, among the rocks and algae. Here its food consists at first of the minutest forms, 

 and later principally of small Crustacea, though it often picks up ruollusks and worms, and even 

 enters the harbors in summer, where it remains about the wharves, picking up bits of refuse thrown 

 from the fish-houses." 



Capt. E. H. Hurlbert tells me that sometimes a school of Codfish will bite at night; these the 

 fishermen call "Night Cod." 



In 1860 the schooner "C. C. Davis" caught one entire trip of fish on George's Bank all in 

 the night, and there are other instances on record, though, as a rule, these fish feed only in the 

 daytime. 



REPRODUCTION. Two important papers on the breeding of the Codfish have recently been 

 printed in the Report of the United States Fish Commission. The first of these is a translation 

 of a report by Prof. G. O. Sars upon the practical and scientific investigations concerning the Cod- 

 fish of the Loffodeu Islands, Norway, made during the years 1864-'69, in behalf of the Norwegian 

 Government. 1 His observations are full of interest. He tells us how, from year to year, he 

 observed the movements of the Codfish and studied out their spawning habits. 



In 1864 he visited the Loffoden Islands, in January, February, and March. He observed the 

 coming in of the fish, as they approached the coast, swimming up the fiords in large schools, and 

 in the latter part of February, and from that time until the end of March, found the eggs in 

 immense numbers floating at the surface. 



In 1865 he reached the isla>nds in the beginning of March and remained until the middle of 

 May. He gathered the eggs as they floated at the surface, and hatched them out in glass jars. 

 He also artificially impregnated the eggs and found that the period of incubation lasted eighteen 

 days. He also observed a few very small young fish at the surface. 



In 1866 he was on the ground on the 7th of May, and remained until July. This year he 

 found great quantities of young Codfish the largest being about one and a half inches in 

 length swimming under the jelly fish (which are so numerous in those northern waters), and 

 also under other objects floating in the sea. 



In 18G7 he reached the islands late in July, and remained until the beginning of October, and 

 succeeded in finding the young fish, two inches or slightly more in length, swimming near the 

 surface in the "slicks," and also in the shallow inlets near the shores, in company with the young 

 pollock, while the stomachs of all the larger Codfish and pollock taken in the neighborhood were 

 full of them. He also found in the beginning of October many larger young Codfish, upwards 



1 United States Fish Commission, pt. v, pp. 565-661. 



