Roundfish 



Like most animals, the cod came home to spawn. And home, 

 for the cod, was where the water was cold, as cold as it usually is 

 in the Labrador current about the beginning of June. It was there- 

 fore able to breed in the North Sea itself, but only during the 

 coldest months, the marine winter, between February and April. 

 Anywhere was good enough provided this inverted simulacrum of 

 the home fire was burning. The temperature was all that matter- 

 ed. The female grew full of eggs, as many as six million eggs, and 

 the milt of the male developed into a labyrinth of milk-soft spirals, 

 as though a chimney were giving off a chain of pure white puffs of 

 smoke in the cavern of his belly. Though only the roe was sold on 

 the open market it was these male 'chittlings' that fishermen pre- 

 ferred. Their taste, however, was too rich for Jan's palate. But, 

 when both roe and milt were ripe, the cod came together, all over 

 the North Sea and the Northern Atlantic, and begot six million 

 children at a time. The eggs floated near the surface, an easy prey 

 to all the numerous plankton feeders that are constantly straining 

 these waters with gill combs or brushes of setae. The mortality 

 of the eggs and of the young larvae was invariably enormous. Had 

 it not always been so then the sea would long since have been 

 over-run by cod. Even as it was they were just kept in check, and 

 that in spite of the fact that mother cod was quite prepared to eat 

 her own children. 



The survivors who came through this dangerous infancy finally 

 absorbed the yolk sac and started out on their own career of de- 

 vouring others, plants and tiny animals to begin with, then larger 

 and still larger beasts, until they too were ready to breed and to 

 eat the fruit of their loins. At first the youngsters were coloured 

 brown but, by the time they were over a foot long, they had ac- 

 quired the sedate green of the adult. They would spread the three 

 delicate, almost transparent fins, high on their backs, prod their 

 heads upwards and search with their eyes for a moving object. Or 

 they would bow down, move slowly along the bottom, the sensi- 

 tive barbel of their lower jaw trailing on the sand of the sea-bed, 

 waiting, hideously sensitive, for the touch of life, of movement or 



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