PACIFIC COD FISHERIES. 71 
jacent to Chatham Strait, but nothing has been done here of recent 
years. Cod in abundance are not to be found until the Portlock Bank 
is reached. From here to Akutan Pass cod are very abundant, and 
probably will be found in considerable abundance along the Aleutian 
Chain beyond the pass. In Bering Sea. between Unimak Pass and 
Bristol Bay, are to be found several large and important banks ad- 
jacent to Unimak Island and the Peninsula. They have been re- 
ported as far north as St. Lawrence Island in Bering Sea, but none 
have been reported in the Arctic Ocean. Edgar O. Campbell,* a 
school-teacher for the United States Bureau of Education, on St. 
Lawrence Island, in a letter dated September 21, 1909, has the fol- 
lowing to say as to the presence of cod around the island: 
A few codfish feed here and are caught every year from July to October, but 
not in any appreciable numbers except every third to fifth year. This year 
promises to be a good one, although the Eskimos are so timid they will not go 
out for more than a half mile from shore in their skin canoes. Some years 
the fish stay until in November and great numbers of them are caught by the 
ice as the sea freezes over. How do you suppose this happens? I have sup- 
posed that, as the top of the sea coats over with a slushy soft ice, the cod, for 
some reason or other, it may be for air, jump up through the ice and fall on 
the surface, their weight not being sufficient to carry them below into water 
again. At any rate they soon freeze and, as soon as the ice is solid enough 
to walk on, the Eskimos bring them home in great piles, like cordwood. This 
has happened twice since we came in 1901. In such years the fox catch is 
sure to be light, for the fox are so well fed they are wary of prepared bait. 
* * * 
On the Asiatic shore cod have been reported as far north as Cape 
Tchaplin, East Siberia, while they have been found as far south as 
Hakodate in Japan. They are most abundant in the Okhotsk Sea. 
SIZE. 
A very erroneous idea of the size of Pacific cod seems to be prevalent 
in certain works on ichthyology. Even as late as 1907 Evermann 
and Goldsborough ° state: “ We have no record of any large examples 
of this cod from the Pacific, where it perhaps does not reach a 
weight exceeding 15 or 20 pounds.” Bean*’ reports having seen 
many which weighed not less than 30 pounds caught on the inshore 
banks, where the cod are notably smaller than those found on the 
offshore banks. He also quotes reports from others as to cod weigh- 
ing from 20 to 50 pounds. 
The writer spent the summer of 1913 at the Pirate Cove station of 
the Union Fish Co. During the greater part of the time almost no 
«Mr. Campbell had written for information as to how the natives could best catch cod 
for their own use. 
+The Fishes of Alaska, by B. W. Evermann and FE. L. Goldsborough. Bulletin, United 
States Bureau of Fisheries. vol. xxv1, 1906; p. 348. (1907.) 
¢ The cod fishery of Alaska, by Tarleton H. Bean. The Fisheries and Fishery Indus- 
tries of the United States, pt. 11, sec. 5, vol. 1, p. 202, 2038. 
