99 



MERLUCIUS. 



The generic character is, that there are t^vo dorsal fins and a 

 single anal fin; but there is no barb at the chin. 



HAKE. 



Asellus sive merlucms, 



ti it a 



Gad US merlucius, 



Merlncius vulgaris, 

 Gade vierlus, 

 Merlucms vulgaris, 



JoNSTON ; Table 1, f. 3. 



WiLLOUGUBY; p. 174 



LiNN^us; but he speaks of it as having a 



barb. 

 Blocii; pi. 16-4. Donovan ; pi. 28. 

 Flejiing; British Animals, p. 195. 

 Lacepede. 



Jenyns ; Manual, p. 447. 

 Takrell ; British Fishes, vol. ii, p. 258. 

 GuNTHER; Cat. Br. Museum, vol. iv. 



The Hake is one of our commonest fishes round the coasts 

 of the British Islands, but it abounds in the greatest numbers 

 in the south and west of England and Ireland. Bellamy, in 

 his account of the fishes met with in the south of Devonshire, 

 says that sixty thousand were brought by trawlers into Plymouth 

 in the months of December and January; and I have been 

 informed that forty thousand were landed in Mount's Bay in 

 one day; and on another occasion eleven hundred were taken 

 by one boat in two nights, — the evening or night being the 

 most successful time of fishing for them. These large assemblies 

 however are not appropriate to the usual habits of this fish, 

 and their gathering together no more proceeds from a love 

 of union than does that of a cry of wolves when hunting 

 their prey. They watch the movements of smaller fishes, and 

 devour voraciously the pilchards and herrings which throng 

 the coasts, in feeding on which it is only when gorged to 



