PACIFIC COD FISHERIES, 
By JoHn N. Coss. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE COD. 
Strange to relate, while the fishery for Pacific cod has been prose- 
cuted since early in the sixties, scientists are not yet agreed as to the 
proper name for the species. According to Bean* “ Most writers 
have referred to it under the name of Gadus macrocephalus, which 
was bestowed by Tilesius upon the Kamchatkan cod, the figure of 
which suggests that it was based upon a deformed individual. Cope, 
in 1873, described the young of the common Alaska cod as a new 
species, Gadus auratus, from specimens collected by Prof. George 
Davidson, of the United States Coast Survey, at Unalaska. Stein- 
dachner, in the Proceedings (Sitzungsberichte) of the Vienna 
Academy, Lx, 1, 1870, adopts the name G. macrocephalus for a large 
cod taken in De Castries Bay (mouth of Amur River), Siberia. In 
this example the length of the head is contained exactly three times 
in the total length to the extreme end of the pointed caudal peduncle. 
The same proportion may, however, be found in any place where 
large numbers of Gadus morrhua are taken, and it can readily be 
proven to be only a matter of individual variation.” 
In the summer of 1880, the late Prof. Spencer F. Baird, then 
United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, sent Dr. Tarleton 
H. Bean to Alaska for the purpose of investigating its fish and 
fisheries, and he made the first extended report on the Pacific cod 
that had been made up to that time.? As a result of his investiga- 
tions, he considers the Atlantic and Pacific cod as of the same species. 
Jordan and Evermann ® call it G. macrocephalus, and in justification 
of this state: “In external respects we recognize no distinction be- 
tween this species [referring to a specimen 20 inches long taken in the 
Strait of Juan de Fuca by the Albatross| and the common eastern 
codfish, except that the head seems larger.” They also quote Dr. 
Gilbert? as follows: “It has been frequently pointed out, and is well 
*The Cod Fishery of Alaska, by Tarleton H. Bean. The Fisheries and Fishery Indus- 
tries of the United States, pt. 11, see. 5, vol. 1, p. 198, 199. 
>Ibid., p. 198-226. 
°The Fishes of North and Middle America, by D. S. Jordan and B. W. Evermann 
Bulletin, United States National Museum, no. 47, pt. 11, p. 2541, 2542. (1898.) 
@Tbid., p. 2542. _ 
86497°—17——26 5 
