COMMON COD. 



JUGULAR FISH. 



OF THE COD TRIBE IN GENERAL. 



Tins is a numerous tribe, the animals of which inhabit only the 

 depths of the ocean, and seldom visit the fresh waters. Thej are in 

 general gregarious, and feed on the smaller fish and other marine 

 animals. The flesh of most of them is white, firm, and good eating. 



THE COMMON COD. 



These fish are on y found in the seas of the northern parts of the 



world ; and the great rendezvous 

 for them are the sand-banks of 

 Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and 

 New England. These shallows are 

 their favorite situations; for here 

 they are able to obtain great 

 quantities of worms, a food that is 

 jieculiarly grateful to them. Another cause of their attachment t) 

 these places is their vicinity to the polar seas where they return to 

 spawn. There they deposit their roes in full security, and afterwards 

 repair, as soon as the first more southern seas are open, to the banks 

 for subsistence. Few are taken north of Iceland, and the shoals never 

 reach so far south as the Straits of Gibraltar. 



The vessels frequenting these fisheries, are from a hundred to two 

 hundred tons burthen, and will catch thirty thousand Cod or upwards 

 each. The hook and the line are the only implements employed in 

 taking the fish ; and this in a depth of water from sixteen to sixty 

 fathoms. The great bank of Newfoundland, is represented to be like 

 a vast mountain, above five hundred miles long, and nearly three 

 hundred broad; and the number of British seamen employed upon 

 it, is supposed to he abi)Ut fifteen thousand. 



^rhe best season for fishing, is from the beginning of February, to 

 the end of April ; and though each man takes no more than one fish at 

 a time, an expert fisherman will sometimes catch four hundred in a 

 day. The employment is excessively fatiguing, from the weight of 

 the fish, and the great coldness of the climate. 



As soon ns the God are caught, their heads are cut off: they ara 

 opened, gutted, and salted : they are then stowed in the Hold of the 

 ves-iel, in b-ids five or six yards square, head to tail, with a layer of 

 salt to each layer of fish. When they have lain here three or four 

 days to drain off the water, they are shifted into a different part of 

 the vessel, and again salted. Here they remain till the vessel ii 

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