FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



409 



Scotia, 14,000 for the Scotian shore of the Bay of Fundy, and 8,000 for the New 

 Brunswick shore, 147,160 pounds for Maine, and less than 4,000 pounds for the 

 whole coast line of Massachusetts north of Cape Cod. Most of the tomcod mar- 

 keted in New Brunswick and Maine are taken in bag or pocket nets set in the lower 

 courses of the larger rivers, and a few in the weirs. The Massachusetts catch is 

 made on hook and line north of Plymouth and in weirs and traps south of 

 that. Besides the fish marketed a considerable number are caught in autumn 

 on hook and line by smelt fishermen all along the shores of northern New England 

 and used for home consumption. Hence they are not reported or included in the 

 fishery statistics. 



Tomcod bite any bait greedily. Clams, shrimp, blood worms, or cut fish will 

 serve, and they afford amusement to more anglers than the meager commercial 

 catch might suggest. 



152. Cod (Gadus callarias Linnaeus) 



Rock cod 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2541. 



Description. — The most noticeable external characters of the cod, emphasized 

 above in the general notice of the cod family (p. -385), are its three dorsal and two 

 anal fins, the lack of spines, the location of its ventral fins well forward of the pec- 



FlG. 20-1.— Cod (Cndus callarias) 



torals, and the facts that its upper jaw protrudes beyond the lov.-er, its tail is usually 

 nearly sciuare, and that its lateral line is pale and not black. It is a heavy-bodied 

 fish, only slightly compressed, its body deepest under the first dorsal fin (one neither 

 very fat nor very lean will be about one-fourth to one-fifth as deep as long) tapering to 

 a moderately slender caudal peduncle, and with head so large that it makes up about 

 one-fourth the total length of the fish. The nose is conical and blunt at the tip, and 

 the mouth is wide, gaping back to below the middle of the eye, A\-ith very small 

 teeth in both jaws. The fir-st dorsal fin usually (if not always) originates well in 

 front of the midlength of the pectoral, is the highest of the thi-ee dorsals, tri- 

 angular, with rounded apex and convex margin. The second dorsal is nearly twice 

 as long as the first and about tAvice as long as high, decreasing in height from front 

 to the rear with slightly convex margin. The third dorsal is slightly longer than 

 the first and similar to the second in shape. The caudal is about as broad as the 



