FISHES. 277 



dred and fifty pounds though sometimes mucli lieavier. Indeed, one has been recorded 

 by a celebrated Swedish iclithyologist, Nilsson, wliieh weiglied 720 pounds, but the 

 most ex])erienced halibut fishers have never met with such giants, and Captain Atwood 

 doubted the truth of a published account of one which weighed over GOO jiounds ; and 

 the largest that he had seen were two in 1879 ; one weighing 359 pounds, and the other 

 401 pounds. A fish weighing 350 pounds is between seven and eight feet long, and 

 nearly four feet in width. Small ones are very rarely met with. The very large ones 

 are coarse as food, and a fat female of 80 pounds is considered by good judges to be in 

 the highest state of perfection ; males are not, however, so highly esteemed. Small 

 halibut weighing from ten to twenty pounds .are often known as chicken-halil)ut, and 

 such are the most esteemed and command a high price. 



According to Mr. Goode, " the history of the halibut fishery has been a peculiar 

 one. At the beginning of the present century, these fish were exceedingly abundant 

 in Massachusetts Bay. From 1830 to 1850, and even later, they were extremely 

 abundant on George's Banks; since 1850 they have partially disappeared from this 

 region, and the fishermen have since been following them to other banks, and, since 

 1874, out into deeper and deeper water, and the fisheries are now carried on almost 

 exclusively in the gullies between the off-shore banks and on the outer edges of the 

 banks, in water one hundred to three hundred and fifty fathoms in depth." 



The halibut, M'ith its large mouth, is naturally a voracious fish, and probably 

 would disdain few objects in the way of fresh meat it would come auross. It 

 is said, however, to feed more especially upon cr.abs and molluscs in addition to 

 fish. These fish " they waylay, lying upon the bottom, invisible by reason of their 

 flat bodies, colored to correspond with the general color of the sand or mud upon 

 which they rest. When in pursuit of their prey they are active, and often come 

 quite to the surface, especially when in summer they follow the capelin to the 

 shoal water near the land. They feed upon skates, cod, h.addock, menhaden, mack- 

 erel, herring, lobsters, flounders, sculpins, grenadiers, turbot, Norway haddock, bank- 

 clams, and anything else that is eatable and can be found in the same waters." Fre- 

 quently halibut may be seen chasing flat-fish over the bottom of the water. About 

 Cape Sable their favorite food seems to be haddock and cusk. A very singu- 

 lar mode of attacking a cod has been recorded by Captain Collins, an experienced 

 fisherman and good observer. They often kill their prey by blows of the tail, a 

 fact which is quite novel and interesting. He has described an instance which 

 occurred on a voyage home from Sable Island in 1S77 : "The man at the wheel 

 sang out that he saw a halibut flapping its tail about a quarter of a mile off our 

 starboard quarter. I looked through the spy-glass, and his statement was soon veri- 

 fied by the second appear.ance of the tail. We hove out a dory, and two men went 

 with her, taking with them a pair of gaff-hooks. They soon returned, bringing not 

 only the halibut, which was a fine one of about seventy jiounds' weight, but a small 

 cod-fish which it had been trying to kill by striking it with its tail. The cod-fish was 

 quite e.vhausted by the repeated blows, and did not attempt to escape after his enemy 

 had been captured. The halibut was so completely engaged in the pursuit of the cod- 

 fish, that it paid no attention to the dory, and was easily captured." 



The females become heavy with roe near the middle of the year, and about July 

 and August are ready to spawn, although " some fishermen say that they spawn at 

 Christmas" or " in the month of January, when they are on the shoals." The roe of a 

 large halibut which weighed three hundred and fifty-six pounds weighed forty-four 



