COALFISH. 85 



pronunciation; but Lacepede has carried the mistake a little 

 further, in supposing it to bear the name of Raw Pollack. 

 This word, Pollack, appears to have been taken from the 

 northern nations, since it is the name employed by the people 

 of Scandinavia. 



The name of Coalfish carries with it its own signification, 

 but it has not been always understood; and the framer of an 

 Act of Parliament, (15th. Charles II, C. 7,) not appearing to 

 know what relationship there could be between this fish and the 

 mineral, but supposing perhaps that the gull was a bird which 

 had some connection with the sea, affixed to it also the name 

 of Gullfish. It further becomes a question whether even 

 another name should not be added to this lengthened list; for 

 in an Act of Parliament, called the Statute of Herrings, (the 

 31st. of Edward III, A.D. 1357,) there are the names of three 

 fishes associated together, the taking and sale of which were 

 thought worthy of being regulated by law, and that too in an 

 arbitrary manner. These were Lob, Ling, and Cod; of the 

 two latter of which there cannot be a doubt; but the former 

 is more obscure. In Wright's "Dictionary of Obsolete Words" 

 the word is said to mean unwieldy a lump: the proper name 

 of the fish would appear to be Lobkeling. According to a 

 Cambridge manuscript, 



"Lobkeling catcheth spirling 

 So stroyeth more men the lesse." 



Another dictionary says that lob means lazy lumpish. It may 

 mean the Coalfish or Hake. 



It is common and abundant on all the coasts of the British 

 Islands, but the numbers are much the greatest in the north, 

 and its range appears to extend in that direction as far as 

 enterprise has yet reached, if indeed, in this last instance, the 

 species is not different. It is known in North America, and 

 Risso classes it also with the fishes of the Mediterranean, but 

 he says it is rare at Nice, where he wrote, and he knows it 

 only as taken in June. 



It is eminently a ravenous fish, and its Cornish name is 

 characteristic of that propensity, the expression rauning being 

 the ancient, and in some places the present pronunciation of the 

 word ravening or ravenous. It snatches at a bait with headlong 



