COD, POLLOCK, HADDOCK AND HAKE. 359 



Cusk is very local in its habits and rarely changes from one locality to 

 another. 



The food of the Cusk doubtless consist chiefly of mollusks and small 

 crustaceans. 



Concerning its spawning habits nothing is known, except that, accord- 

 ing to Faber, it breeds in April and May on the coast of West and .South 

 Ireland. 



The Cusk is considered a very excellent fish, especially for boiling, but 

 there is a very limited demand for it, and most of those which are taken 

 are salted. On account of their low prices fishermen shun them, and they 

 are hardly in better favor than dogfish. In the spring of 1878 they were 

 worth in Gloucester from twenty to fifty cents per hundred, and in August 

 of the same year about one dollar per hundred. One of the peculiar 

 habits of the Cusks renders their cajiture difficult, and frequently causes the 

 destruction of the fishing-tackle ; it is said that after they have taken the 

 hook they curl their tails round the angles of the rock and cling to them 

 with such strength that it is impossible to dislodge them. Fishermen say 

 that when they are brought to the surface the skin rises from the body in 

 great blisters. This they regard as a favorable sign, as showing that the 

 fish are '' thrifty," or healthy. The name "Tusk," used for this fish in 

 Newfoundland, is now never used in the United States, although it seems 

 to have been in use a century ago, a well-known fishing ground in the 

 Gulf of Maine being known as the " Tusk Rock." 



The two species which have commercial value being P. chuss and P. 

 tenuis. These species are very similar in appearance, and it is with diffi- 

 culty that they can be distinguished from each other by the trained eye of 

 the zoologist. The most tangible distinction may be found in the num- 

 ber of scales, which are much smaller in P. tenuis, there being from one 

 hundred and thirty-five to one hundred and forty oblicjue rows between the 

 bronchial opening and the root of the caudal fin, while there are about 

 twelve rows between the lateral line and the region of the first dorsal. In 

 P. e/iuss there are only one hundred rows in the lateral line and nine rows 

 above the lateral line ; in the former the ventral does not ordinarily reach 

 quite to the vent, in the latter it extends beyond the vent. This char- 

 acter, however, cannot always be relied upon. 



Our Hakes are all different from the Forked Beard, P. blennioides, of 

 Great Britain, sometimes called the Hake's Dame, which is a member of 



