176 ON THE ECONOMICAL USES OF FISHES. 



filled, return to the vessel, and the fish are thrown 

 on deck hy means of a pole armed at the top with 

 an iron hook. The hoats again return for more fish, 

 of which Mr. Audubon calculates, each boat may 

 procure 2000 per diem, and, in the mean time, the 

 men on board proceed to clean the fish, which they 

 do in the following manner. One breaks off the 

 head, throws it overboard, and rips up the belly. 

 His neighbour tears out the entrails, separates the 

 liver, which he throws into a cask, and casts the 

 rest overboard. A third person separates the back- 

 bone, and throws the fish into the hold, where others 

 are busy in salting and packing the whole. Such of 

 the fish as are intended to be dried, are, after being 

 salted, laid side by side in the sun, and allowed to 

 remain thus exposed for some time, after which 

 they are piled in heaps, the process being now 

 completed. When the capelins approach the shore 

 to spawn, the cods follow them in prodigious shoals, 

 and immense numbers of the latter are caught in 

 seines and other nets, although this mode of pro- 

 cedure is prohibited by law, a large proportion of the 

 fish thus taken being altogether useless from their 

 small size. Finally, Mr. Audubon considers, that 

 whatever be the means of the fishermen, if the 

 season is favourable they are generally well repaid 

 for their labour, and he has knoA^Ti of individuals 

 engaged in this fishery who procured an indepen- 

 dence in the course of perhaps ten years. 



The cod is caught on our own coast by means of 

 long lines, which are always shot across the tide. 



