96 



BROSMIUS. 



Tuis genus is marked by having only a single fin on the back, a 

 lengthened body, and a barb at the chin. It is therefore an aberrant 

 fox-m of the true gadoid fishes; but it agrees with them in all points, 

 except in the absence of a fij'st dorsal fin. 



TOESK. 



TUSK. 



Gadus hrosme, Lacepede. Donovan; pi. 70. 



Brosmus vulgaris, Fleming; British Animals, p. 194. 



" " Jenyns ; Manual, p. 452. 



" " Yahrell; British Fishes, vol. ii, p. 285. 



Turton's edition of Linngeus represents Gadus hrosme and 

 G. scoticus to be distinct species, the former being perhaps the 

 Brosmiiis luh of modern writers. The fish itself was unknown 

 to Artedi and Linnaeus. In the Scandinavian languages the 

 Avord Torsk is applied to the species of Codfishes in general, 

 as distinguished from the Pollacks and Lings; but in the 

 northern portions of the British Islands it has become the 

 name of a fish not belonging to that section of gadoid fishes 

 to which the people of the north had confined it. 



The fish so named in England is a native of the northern 

 seas, and is met Avith in abundance in the neighbourhood of 

 the Orkney and Zetland Islands, where it is the object of a 

 fishery of considerable local importance. On the newly 

 re-discovered ground at Rockall it exists in common with the 

 Cod and Ling, but it becomes more rare as we come southward; 

 and, although it is sometimes caught in the Moray Firth, 

 there is no instance on record of its being met with in 



