NOVEMBER 267 



herring, which runs so poor a chance of finishing its 

 natural term of life. A very moderate-sized mother 

 cod will be delivered of about one million eggs in a 

 single accouchement. If one per thousand of these 

 were to produce a codling that should attain maturity, 

 there would soon be room for very few other fishes in 

 the North Atlantic. But the cod casts its million ova 

 adrift in the ocean to be carried hither and thither by 

 the currents, and the chances against any one ovum, 

 larval fry, or codling escaping the rapacity of other 

 predacious animals must be many thousands to one. 

 One might suppose that heredity and experience 

 would have combined to render the habit of fear and 

 suspicion ineradicable in the survivors. But that is 

 not so. The cod is amenable to confidential intercourse 

 with man, who is certainly not the least formidable of 

 its enemies. 



In the extreme south-west of Scotland, where the 

 attenuated promontory ending in the Mull of Galloway 

 projects far into St. George's Channel, there is a 

 remarkable rock basin, partly natural and partly hewn 

 out of the cliff, into which the tide flows through an 

 iron grating. This is the Logan Fishpond, where, for 

 many generations, it has been the custom to imprison 

 fish taken in the open sea, especially cod, to be fattened 

 for the table. If you look quietly over the enclosing 

 wall on the landward side, you will see a circular basin 

 about thirty feet in diameter, fringed with algae, and so 

 deep that the bottom cannot be seen through the clear, 

 green water. No sign of life is visible, save perhaps 

 a few coalfish or pollack-whiting cruising restlessly 



