150 FISH HARVESTING. 
quite impossible to investigate its specific cha- 
racter, inasmuch as the Indians immediately 
set to work to cut the body in pieces, some to be 
there and then devoured, after a very brief roast- 
ing on a temporary fire; the remainder, packed 
into the canoe,was taken to the village. 
Halibut are said to spawn in the middle of 
February; the roe, which is bright red, being es- 
teemed a great dainty by all the Coast Indians. 
Cop.—The true Cod, although I never saw it 
offered for sale in the Victoria market, is taken 
both at the northern extremity of Vancouver 
Island, and near Cape Flattery, at its southern 
end. The Indians fish for them with hooks and 
lines, and adopt very much the same system 
for landing heavy obstinate fish as I have already 
described as used to subdue the halibut. No 
regular system of deep sea fishing had, when I 
left the island, been tried by white men; neither 
had the trawl ever dragged up the treasures hid- 
den at the bottom; so that deep-sea fish are still 
comparatively unknown. But of this I am quite 
sure—whenever fisheries are established along 
the island coasts, the trawl and deep-sea line, 
used by experienced hands, will bring up treasures 
from mines of wealth as yet unworked, to which 
gold and fur are nothing. 
