3 1 2 AMERICAN FISHE. 



At the meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, in 1S52, Dr. 

 W. O. Ayres stated that he had seen a block of wood, a cubic foot in 

 dimension, taken from the stomach of a Halibut, where it had apparently 

 lain for a long time. Capt. George A. Johnson found an accordion key 

 in one of them. Olafson, in 1831, studying them on the coast of Green- 

 land, found not only pieces of iron and wood in them, but in the stomach 

 of one individual a large piece of floe ice. Capt. Collins has observed 

 that they often kill their prey by blows of the tail, a fact which is quite 

 novel and interesting. He described to me an instance which occurred 

 on a voyage home from Sable Island in 1S77 : " The man at the wheel 

 sang out that he saw a Halibut flapping its tail about a quarter of a mile 

 off our starboard quarter. I looked through the spy-glass, and his state- 

 ment was soon verified by the second appearance of the tail. AVe hove 

 out a dory, and two men went in her, taking with them a pair of gaff- 

 hooks. They soon returned bringing not only the Halibut, which was a 

 fine one, of about seventy pounds' weight, but a small codfish which it 

 had been trying to kill by striking it with its tail. The codfish was quite 

 exhausted by the repeated blows, and did not attempt to escape after his 

 enemy had been captured. The Halibut was so completely engaged in 

 the pursuit of the codfish that it paid no attention to the dory, and was 

 easily captured." 



The Halibut, in its turn, is the prey of seals, of the white whale, and of 

 the various large sharks, especially the ground shark, or sleeping shark, in 

 the stomachs of which they have sometimes been found ; their sides, I am 

 told by Copt. Collins, are often deeply scarred, probably by the teeth of 

 the sharks, or in their early lives by mouths of larger individuals of their 

 own kind. 



There is diversity of opinion regarding their spawning. Some fishermen 

 say that they breed at Christmas time, in the month of January, when 

 they are on the shoals. Others declare that it is in summer, at the end 

 of June. Capt. George A. Johnson, of the Schooner "Augusta H. John- 

 son," of Gloucester, assures me that Halibut " sj^awn, just like the human 

 race, at any time of the year." In April, 1S78, he was fishing on Quer- 

 cau Bank, and found large and small Halibut, the large ones full of s])awn. 

 In May he was on the Le Have Bank, where he found only small male fish 

 full of milt ; in June he was on Le Have again, fishing in shallow water, 

 where he found plenty of "small bull fish, with their pockets full of milt" ; in 



