Roundfish 



Perhaps the feeding was richer in the north. Perhaps it was only 

 some trace element, rather like a vitamin, that promoted growth. 

 Perhaps, even, it was something genetic and resulted from the 

 separation of the northern and southern populations. Jan didn't 

 know. And nobody could tell him. Only one thing was certain, 

 that the biggest fish of any given species lived in the far north. 



But the gadoids were evolving. They were splitting up into 

 highly differentiated groups of specialised species, some of them 

 confined to corrugations and crannies in the rock-bed of the shal- 

 lows while others were limited to the velvety mud of the black 

 abyss. Very few of them were so versatile, so easily adaptable to 

 a thousand different environments, as the cod, the haddock and 

 the whiting. The rocklings in shallow water and the torsk in deep 

 had very little interest for fishermen, but there were some of the 

 more specialised gadoids that had long been institutionalised as 

 food in the islands of the north. 



LING 



Of these, the chief was the ling. A green sea serpent, it lived 

 in deep water, penetrating to all but the very deepest abysses of 

 the Northern Atlantic. Since the days when boats were first in- 

 vented, Gaelic fishermen, the men of Ossian, had hunted it with 

 long baited lines. A glossy slimy covering lubricated its long cyl- 

 indrical body that ended ventrally in a barbel so long that it might 

 almost have been described as a tentacle. Its eyes were propor- 

 tionally weak, since an animal so well furnished with organs of 

 touch was almost certain to hunt by touch and had therefore little 

 use for highly developed visual aids. But, if the ling did hunt with 

 its barbel, then its barbel must have been a very efficient instru- 

 ment for the chase. Ling were abundant over large stretches of 



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