FISHES. 619 



and Cette, where the process of curing is completed. In our home 

 fisheries, to abbreviate slightly Dr. Bertram's account, the greater 

 part of the cod taken are eaten fresh, but considerable quantities of 

 the cod and ling taken on the coast are sent to market cured. The 

 process pursued is very simple : they are brought on shore quite fresh, 

 and are at once split from head to tail, and, by copious washings, 

 thoroughly cleansed from all particles of blood ; a piece of the back- 

 bone is cut away ; they are drained, and afterwards laid down in long 

 vats, where they are covered with salt, and kept under heavy weights. 

 By-and-bye the fish are taken out of the vats ; they are once more 

 drained, and carefully brushed, to remove any impurity, and bleached 

 by being spread out singly on the sandy beach or on the rocks , 

 when thoroughly bleached, they are collected into heaps technically 

 called steeples, and when the bloom, or whitish appearance, comes out 

 on the fish they are ready for the market. 



The cod is one of our best-known fishes, and was at one time 

 much more plentiful and cheaper than it is now. It is a deep-water 

 fish, found, as we have seen, in all northern seas, and in the Atlantic, 

 but never in the Mediterranean. It is extremely voracious, greedily 

 eating up the smaller denizens of the ocean. It grows to a large 

 size, and is very prolific, as most fishes are. A cod's roe has been 

 found more than once to be half the gross weight of the fish, and 

 specimens of the female cod have been caught with upwards of 

 8,000,000 eggs. The fish spawn in mid-winter; but here our in- 

 formation ceases ; when it becomes reproductive is unknown. Dr. 

 Bertram thinks that it is at least three years old before it is endowed 

 with the power of breeding. 



The growth of the cod is supposed to be very slow. Dr. Bertram 

 quotes the authority of a rather learned fisherman of Buckie, who had 

 seen a cod which had got enclosed in a large rock pool, and he found 

 that it did not grow at a greater rate than eight to twelve ounces per 

 annum, though it had abundance of food. 



On our own coast two modes of fishing are in common use : one 

 by deep-sea lines, on each of which hooks are fastened at distances 

 twelve feet apart by means of short lines six feet long, called on the 

 Cornish coast " snoods." Buoys, ropes, or grapnels, are fixed to 

 each end of the long line, to keep them from entanglement with each 

 other. The hooks are baited with capelan, lance, or whelks, and the 

 lines are shot across the tide about the time of slack water, in from 

 forty to fifty fathoms, and are hauled in for examination after six hours. 



An improvement has been introduced upon this mode of fishing 

 by Mr. Cobb. He fixes a small piece of cork about twelve inches 



