740 PISCES—COD. 
strong health to the rowget, or roach. It is so silly a fish, that it is called 
the water sheep. 
It is a common fish, found in many of our deep still rivers, affecting, like 
the others of this genus, quiet waters. It is gregarious, keeping in large 
shoals. We have never seen them very large. Old Walton speaks of some 
that weighed two pounds. Ina list of fish sold in the London markets, 
with the greatest weight of each, there is mention of one whose weight was 
five pounds. 

ORDER VII.—MALACOPTERYGII SUBRACHIATIL 
TuEsE fishes have the jaws complete; bronchie pectinated; ventral fins 
placed either before the pectorals, between them, or a little behind. 
THE COD.) 

Tue cod seems to be the foremost of the wandering tribe of fishes, and in 
only found in the northern part of the world. ‘Their principal food consists 
of the smaller species of fish, worms, shell-fish, and crabs; and their 
stomachs are capable of dissolving the major part of the shells which they 
swallow. They grow to a great size. The largest that ever was seen, 
was taken at Scarborough, England, in 1775. It weighed seventy-eight 
pounds, and was five feet eight inches long. This animal’s chief place of 
resort is on the banks of Newfoundland, and the other sand banks that lie 
off Cape Breton. That extensive flat seems to be no other than the broad 
top of a sea mountain, extending for above five hundred miles long, and 
surrounded with a deeper sea. Hither the cod annually repair, in numbers 
beyond the power of calculation, to feed on the quantity of worms that are 
to be found there in the sandy bottom. Here they are taken in such quanti- 
ties, that they supply Europe and America with a considerable share of pro- 
vision. The English have stages erected all along the shore, for salting 
and drying them; and the fishermen, who take them with the hook and 
line, which is their method, draw them in as fast as they can throw out. 
An expert hand will -sometimes capture four hundred in a day. This 


1 Morrhua vulgaris, Lin. The genus Morrhua has the head compressed ; e es distant, 
on the sides of the head ; body elongated, slightly compressed ; three dorsal fins; two 
anal; ventral fins pointed; a cirrus at the point of the lower jaw. 
