8^ Mr W. E. Cormack oti the Natural History and 



On the Natural History and Economical Uses of the Cod, Ca- 

 peU7i, Cnttle-Fish, and Seal, as they occur on the Banks of 

 Newfoundland, and the Coasts of that Island and Labrador*, 

 Communicated in a Letter to Professor Jameson, by W. Ei 

 Cormack, Esq. f 



vJf the fishes of the British North American Seas, the most 

 abundant is, at the same time, the most important to man. 

 The cod (Gadus Morhua) here holds dominion over all the 

 babitable parts of the ocean, — from the outer edges of the great 

 banks of Newfoundland, which are more than 300 miles from 

 land, and more than 100 fathoms deep, to the verges of every 

 <;reek and cove of the bounding coasts : it even ascends into the 

 fresh-water. 



To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends her 

 periodical masses of other living beings ; and these, in the eco- 

 nomy of nature, are next in importance, and, of necessity, in 

 abundance in these seas. Nature furnishes two successive tribes 

 of animals as food for one tribe; and for the three together, this 

 busiest part of the ocean seems to exist. 



' The Cod. — The cod is accompanied at one season by shoals 

 of myriads of the capelin (Salmo arcticus), and at another by 

 eiqual hosts of that molluscous animal the cuttle-fish {Sepia Lo- 

 iigo), called in Newfoundland the Squid. The three animals 

 are migratory ; and man, who stations himself on the shores for 

 their combined destruction, conducts his movements according 

 to their migrations. By art, he captures annually more than two 

 hundred millions of the cod with the capelin, and one hundred 

 millions with the cuttle-fish. On the coast of Labrador, and 

 in the north part of Newfoundland, the cod is so abundant, that 

 it is hauled on shore with lines in vast quantities. Thus, by 

 these three means, and the use of herrings and shell-fish for bait, 



■ Read before the Wernerian Natural History Society, 14th January 1826, 



-|- The interesting details in this communication, are the result of the au- 

 thor's inquiries and observations in Newfoundland. Mr Cormack, who is an ac- 

 tive and intelligent Newfoundland merchant, has already distinguished himself, 

 by being the first European who succeeded in crossing Newfoundland ; of which 

 achievment an account, vtith a map of the route, was published in the 10th vo- 

 lume of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, p. 56. ei sej — Ed, 



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