FOOD FISHES. 229 



and expeditious operation which many may suppose. Tims, 

 on one occasion, when Sir W. Thomson and his staff were 

 dredging in the Bay of Biscay, this instrument was lowered 

 into the water at 4.40 p.m., and before it had reached the 

 bottom — a depth of three and a half miles — two hours had 

 elapsed. The hauling-in commenced at 8.50 p.m., and it 

 was not till one in the morning — that is, eight hours after 

 it had been cast overboard — that it was safely landed on 

 deck, bringing with it a hundredweight and a half of the 

 characteristic mud of the Atlantic. And now for the 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TEMPERATE SEAS. 



These seas are in an especial manner the home of the 

 food fishes : shoals of herring appear and disappear on 

 their coasts; their sandbanks are alive with myriads of 

 cod, haddock, and ling; and the estuaries of the rivers 

 which run into them abound in salmon, trout, and eels. 

 Resides those species highly valuable as human food, there 

 are others, as the devil-fish, the sun-fish, the remora, sea- 

 scorpions, and sticklebacks, which are interesting either 

 from their peculiar forms or their no less remarkable 

 habits. Of the food fishes space will only permit us to 

 notice the Cod. This is one of the most voracious of fish, 

 and the fisherman need not be particular as to the kind of 

 bait with which he seeks to catch it. The contents of the 

 stomach of a well-fed cod form a small museum of marine 

 animals, — small fish, crustaceans, shell-fish, and worms. 

 Mr. Couch has taken no fewer than thirty-five crabs from 

 the stomach of a single one of those gourmands. No won- 

 der til at they often attain a weight exceeding sixty pounds. 



