216 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
well as of the numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the 
course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four 
hundred one after another with his line—no easy task con- 
sidering the size of the fish, which often attains a length of 
from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty 
pounds. 
The captured fish have but little time left them to bewail 
their lot, for a few thousands will be “ dressed down ”—that is, 
gutted, boned and salted—in the course of two or three hours. 
For this purpose the crew divide themselves into throaters, 
headers, splitters, salters, and packers. First the throater 
passes his sharp knife across the throat of the unfortunate cod 
to the bone and rips open the bowels. He then passes it quickly 
to the header, who with a strong sudden wrench pulls off the 
head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing 
at the same time the fish instantly to the splitter, who with one 
cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling 
of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After 
separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues, and 
packed in barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone follows the 
entrails overboard, while the fish at the same moment is passed 
with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing quick- 
ness of the operations of heading and splitting that a good 
workman will often decapitate and take out the entrails and 
back-bone of six fish in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed 
to know something of each of these operations, and no rivals at 
cricket ever entered with more ardour into their work than do 
some athletic champions for the palm of “dressing down” after 
a *day’s catch.” 
Besides its excellent firm flesh, the liver-oil of the cod is used 
as a valuable medicine, and serves to restore many a scrofulous 
or rickety child to health. The sound-bladder is also employed 
by the Icelanders for the manufacture of fish-lime or isinglass. 
The best quality of the latter article, however, is afforded by a 
species of Sturgeon (Accipenser Huso) which is chiefly found in 
the Black and Caspian seas, and ascends the tributary rivers in 
immense numbers. 
The Common Sturgeon (Accipenser sturio), though principally 
frequenting the seas and rivers of North-Eastern Europe, where, 
especially in the Volga, extensive fisheries are established for its 
