132 COMMON COD, 



and forms so considerable a part of the subsistence 

 of mankind, is an inhabitant of the Northern seas, 

 where it resides in. immense shoals, performing 

 various migrations at stated seasons, and visiting 

 in succession the different coasts of Europe and 

 America. Its history is so well detailed by Mr. 

 Pennant, that little can be added to what that 

 author has collected in his British and Arctic 

 Zoology. 



" The general rendezvous of the Cod-fish," says 

 Mr. Pennant, " is on the banks of Newfoundland, 

 and the other sand-banks that lie off the coasts of 

 Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and New England. 

 They prefer those situations on account of the 

 quantity of worms produced }n those sandy bottoms, 

 which tempt them to resort there for food; but 

 another cause of this particular attachment to those 

 spots is their vicinity to the polar seas, where they 

 return to spawn: there they deposit their roe in 

 full security, but want of food forces them, as soon 

 as the first more Southern seas are open, to repair 

 thither for subsistence. Few are taken north of 

 Iceland, but on the south and west coasts they 

 abound : they are again found to swarm on the 

 coasts of Norway, in the Baltic, off Orkney and the 

 Western Isles 3 after which their numbers decrease, 

 in proportion as they advance towards the south, 

 when they seeni quite to cease before they reach 

 the mouth of the Strajts of Gibraltar/' 



Before the discovery of Newfoundland, the greater 

 fisheries of Cod were on the seas of Iceland and 

 pur pwn Western Isles, which were the grand resort 



