THE NEWFOUNDLAND COD FISHERIES. 175 



Space will not permit of more than a passing notice to the flat-fish, or Pleuronectida. 

 These fish swim by means of a caudal fin, and they can ascend or descend in the water 

 readily, but they cannot turn to right or left with the same facility as other fish. Most 

 flat-fish, soles, turbot, flounders, and plaice, are taken by trawl nets. Some of the larger 

 are speared. 



The holibut (or halibut) is a fish which attains a great size, sometimes as much as 

 seven feet in length, and weighing 300 pounds. One brought to Edinburgh measured 

 seven-and-a-half feet in length by three feet in breadth; it weighed 320 pounds. In 

 Norway and Greenland a long cord, from which branch thirty or so smaller cords, 

 each furnished with a barbed hook, is employed for their capture. The main cord is 

 attached to floating planks, which indicate the place where it is let down. 



The Gadidce family includes some most important fish, commercially considered, such 

 as the whiting, haddock, and cod, the general form and peculiarities of which are familiar 

 to all. 



The cod fish is a most voracious feeder, and is provided with a vast stomach ; it eats 

 molluscs, crabs, and small fish, and has been known even to swallow pieces of wood. It is 

 essentially a sea fish, and is never seen in rivers. From the days of John Cabot, the English, 

 French, Dutch, and Americans have prosecuted the great fisheries on the banks of Newfound- 

 land ; 2,000 English vessels, manned by 32,000 seamen, are employed in the pursuit. The 

 modern cod-smack is clipper-built, has large tank wells for carrying the fish alive, and costs 

 about 1,500. The fish is taken in nets, or by line. Bertram tells us that each man has 

 a line of fifty fathoms in length, and attached to this are a hundred hooks, baited with 

 mussels, pieces of herring, or whiting. " On arriving at the fishing ground, the fishermen 

 heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff about six feet in height attached to it. The 

 buoy is kept stationary by a line, called the ' pow end/ reaching to the bottom of the water, 

 where it is held by a stone or grapnel fastened to the lower end. To the ( pow end ' is 

 also fastened the fishing-line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat sails, which may 

 be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be unfavourable for the direction 

 in which the crew wish to set the line, they use the oars. When the line, or f taes/ is 

 all out, the end is dropped, and the boat returns to the buoy. The 'pow' line is hauled 

 up with the anchor and fishing-line attached to it. The fishermen then haul in the line, 

 with the fish attached to it. Eight hundred fish might be, and often have been, taken by 

 eight men in a few hours by this operation ; but many fishermen say now that they consider 

 themselves fortunate when they get a fish on every fifth hook on an eight-lined 'taes' 

 line." On our own coasts the cod is principally taken by deep-sea lines, with many shorter 

 lines depending from them armed with large hooks. One man has in ten hours taken 400, 

 and eight men have taken eighty score in one day off the Doggerbank. The Norfolk and 

 Lincoln coasts afford a large supply; the fish taken is stowed in well-boats, and brought 

 to Gravesend, whence they are transhipped into market boats and sent to Billingsgate. 

 The store-boats with their wells, through which the water circulates, cannot come higher, 

 as the fresh water of the Thames, and possibly some of that which is not too fresh, would 

 kill the fish. 



The haddock is also taken with lines. In the village of Findhorn, Morayshire, large 



