192 GADITES. 



ance of an inexhaustible supply of wholesome food, 

 secured to all succeeding generations. 



The inshore cod, as on the great banks, are 

 caught with a line, in two, six and eight fathoms 

 of water, where the tide ebbs and flows with con- 

 siderable force, over rocky soundings. Pleasure 

 boats are often successful in hauling one or two 

 hundred in a day, weighing from one to fifteen 

 pounds. Those huge specimens seen occasionally 

 in the stalls, are procured farther out at sea. 



Those boats which supply the market, summer 

 and winter, go about six miles, where, after hav- 

 ing procured a quantity, they run up in the night 

 to deliver them fresh the next morning to their 

 regular customers. Many have their smacks so 

 constructed that the fish are kept alive in the hold 

 till the hour of sale. This is certainly much bet- 

 ter than the old mode of keeping them till the next 

 day, as they have a tendency to become putrid 

 much sooner than the flesh of land animals. 



The New York market is decidedly superior to 

 Boston in this respect, viz : the fish are actual- 

 ly swimming in the car when sold. 



In the spring the cod seems uncommonly vora- 

 cious ; for however unsuccessful it may have been 

 in snatching the bait from the hook, and notwith- 

 standing the mouth may have been severely lace- 

 rated, it seizes with avidity the very next it dis- 



