COD-FISHEEIES OF CAPE ANN. 715 



tides usually found ou the spawning-grounds play an important part in 

 distributing the germs, thus making the chances of impregnation more 

 favorable. Indeed it may be possible, and, if the spaTming goes on 

 gradually for several months, seems not improbable, that the immediate 

 presence of the opposite sexes during the act of spawning is not neces- 

 sary, but rather that the eggs are fertilized mainly by accidental con- 

 tact. Observations would seem to strengthen the probabilities of this 

 theory ; for, if the fish went in pairs, they would often be taken on 

 adjoining hooks of the trawl, or one on either hook of the hand-line. 

 Such is not usually the case, however, but on the contrary several of the 

 same sex are more frequently taken together. 



The eggs have a specific gravity of 1.020 to 1.025, as indicated by the 

 fact that they float in salt water and sink rapidly in fresh. The oldest 

 fishermen had not the slightest knowledge of this fact, but held to the 

 idea that the females deposited their eggs on the rocks, where they 

 were visited and impregnated by the males, and left to become the food 

 of the various animals so abundant in such localities. They had at 

 times noticed the little transparent globular bodies in the water, but it 

 had never occurred to them that they were the eggs of any fish. They 

 may be found at the surface in common with eggs of the pollock, had- 

 dock, and probably other species of the cod family, when the sea is 

 smooth ] but when the water becomes rough they are carried to a depth 

 of several fathoms by the current, though the tendency is to remain 

 near the surface. 



There are many ways in which these eggs may be destroyed. The 

 principal loss is probably the result of non-imiiregnation, for unless they 

 come in contact with the milt of the male very soon after being thrown 

 from the parent they lose their vitality. Again, being subject to the 

 winds and tides, they are often carried long distances from the spawning- 

 grounds into the little bays and coves, and are driven upon the shores 

 in immense numbers, or left dry by the tides, where they soon die from 

 exposure to the atmosphere, or diuing the cold winter weather are in- 

 stantly destroyed by freezing. Ipswich Bay, the most extensive spawn- 

 ing-ground in the locality, is especially unfortunate in this particular, 

 for the heavy storms from the north and east tend to drive them upon 

 the shore, and each breaker as it rolls in upon the beach must carry with 

 it many millions of eggs. 



But such impregnated eggs as escape destruction upon the shores are 

 subjected to the ravages of .the myriads of hungry animals living about 

 the rocks and coves, and many are consumed. One day in January we 

 introduced a jelly-fish or medusid, having a diameter of but IJ inches, 

 into a tray of eggs in the hatching-room, and in less than five minutes 

 it had fastened 70 eggs to its tentacles, often loading them so heavily 

 that they were severed from the body by the weight or resistance of the 

 eggs as they were dragged through the water. 



By the aid of a microscope, numbers of vorticelU were found ux^ou them, 



