CHAPTER XIII 



THE COT) FAMILY AND THE SJNT)-EELS 



Dr. Bashford Dean* regards the cod type as scarcely 

 less representative among bony fishes than the more commonly 

 selected perch, and he is also of opinion that it has 

 developed its existing characters from a less active competition 

 in the sea. " Heavy in body," he says, " its sluggish form 

 has become blunted and rounded ; its fins are depressed, 

 their rays soft and yielding ; its scales are reduced in size, 

 colours less vivid ; its swim-bladder loses its connection vj\t\\ 

 the gullet." 



These words admirably sum the leading characters of the 

 cod family. Their clumsy build, large eyes, and soft fins dis- 

 tinguish them from almost all of the foregoing families. Some 

 of their most pronounced characters disappear, it is true, after 

 death, while others would seem to have been described chiefly 

 from the latter condition. To the latter belong the current 

 accounts of their dull grey and brown colouring, for no one 

 who has caught cod, haddock, whiting, pollack, or pout, can 

 accuse them of lack of beautiful tints. The authors of 

 Scandinavian Fishes, a magnificent work already alluded to 

 more than once, were among the first to pay tribute to the 

 handsome colouring of some of these gadoids when living. 

 Another feature that alters very quickly when life is extinct 

 is the slime that covers the minute scales. There is no 



* Fishes, Living and Fossil, p. 174. 

 242 



