134 THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. 



strength. The fecundity of the cod is incredibly 

 great. The celebrated microscopist, Leuwenhoeck, 

 counted in a single individual as many as nine millions 

 of eggs. Their multiplication being so rapid, it is 

 easy to repair in a single season the losses of an 

 army. 



Sharks and other great fishes destroy the cod by 

 thousands ; man — a more terrible enemy still, per- 

 haps — makes a shambles of his feeding-ground. What 

 a blessing it was to these creatures when our race 

 was confined to the limits of the ancient world ! 

 What a happy tranquillity did they not enjoy, before 

 the illustrious Cabots dared to face the fogs and 

 frozen waters of Newfoundland and Canada ! 



The cod-fishery is by far more dangerous and more 

 tedious than that of the herring. The net cannot be 

 employed with the same facility, although it is still 

 used upon the coasts of Norway. A line is generally 

 substituted for it. To the line is fixed a hook, with 

 a bait which the cod is not slow to seize hold of. 

 His weight renders the operation of pulling in most 

 laborious. To form an idea of the amount of work 

 done by a fisherman in a single day, it is enough to 

 state that a strong man may capture as many as four 

 hundred of these fish, weighing, on the average, from 

 fifteen to twenty pounds each ; some individuals, how- 

 ever, measuring, nearly five feet in circumference, and 



