COD TRIBE. 



433 



it affords a most wholesome and substantial food, and as it possesses the property 

 of taking salt readily, it is more valuable as a food-supply than would otherwise 

 be the case. Moreover, the liver of the cod is of especial value as the source of a 

 highly strengthening medicinal oil, greatly increasing the value of the fishery 

 of this species, which affords employment to a host of men on both sides of the 

 Atlantic. The family is divided into more than twenty distinct genera, but in 

 this work our attention will be chiefly concentrated on those containing species of 

 •commercial importance. Geologically the group is not a very ancient one, the 

 oldest known forms, all of which are referred to extinct genera, occurring in 

 the London Clay and other deposits of lower Eocene age. 



The common cod (Gadus morrhua), of which a half -grown and 

 an adult example are shown in the two lower figures of our illustra- 

 tion, is the typical representative of a genus primarily characterised by the 

 presence of three dorsal and two anal fins, and of teeth on the vomer, the palatine 

 bones being toothless. The degree of elongation of the body is moderate, and the 

 narrow pelvic fins include six or more rays. In the majority of the eighteen species 

 recognised by naturalists there is a single barbel dependent from the chin, but in 

 some forms this is absent. The species are distributed over the Arctic and Tem- 

 perate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The common cod belongs to a group of 

 several species characterised by the upper jaw being the longer, and the outer series 

 of upper teeth stouter than the inner ones ; its barbel is relatively long. Cod 

 from the British seas and German Ocean are usually greenish or brownish olive in 

 colour, with a number of yellowish or brown spots ; but more to the north darker, 

 and often uniformly coloured specimens are more common, while in the race from 

 Greenland, Scandinavia, and Northern Norway there is frequently a large, irregular 

 black patch on each side of the body. As a rule, cod vary in length from 2 to 4 

 feet, and may weigh as much as 100 lbs. ; but a specimen out of condition, caught 

 near Wick in the year 1872, measured upwards of 4| feet. The range of the cod 

 includes the coasts of Northern Europe, Iceland, and Greenland, whence it descends 

 on the American coast as far as the latitude of New York ; the depth at which the 

 fish is found extending as low as one hundred and twenty fathoms. In Britain 

 the spawning-time is in January, at which season these fish resort to the shores in 

 great numbers, although at other times of the year they are only found in the 

 neighbourhood of land singly. In America cod do not deposit their spawn till May. 

 The great fisheries are those of the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, Iceland, and 

 the banks of Newfoundland ; the product of the latter area having been formerly 

 the greatest of all, its average value some twenty years ago being estimated at 

 upwards of £700,000, of which £400,000 was accounted for by the dried fish alone, 

 the remainder being made up by the oil, skins, etc. The cod is an exceeding pro- 

 ductive fish, Buckland stating that the number of eggs in a roe weighing 7| lbs. 

 was close on seven millions. Cod feed on various crustaceans, worms, molluscs, 

 and small fish ; and since they always frequent comparatively deep water, they 

 are caught by means of lines. 



Belonging to the same group of the genus as the common cod, 

 the haddock (G. oeglefinus), which is shown in the left upper figure 

 of the illustration on p. 432, may be always recognised by the blackish patch on 

 vol. v. — 28 



