individuals, the title “ King of the food-fishes”’ is justified, 
even against the herring. 
Each female lays from three to ninemillion eggseach year, 
generally in the months from February to May, inclusive. 
The fish spawns rapidly. As the females are “ripening,” 
the roe or ovaries are so large that they fill the mother’s 
body and actually tend to prevent her feeding. So far as 
it goes, this is a fortunate protection for the species, since, 
during this important period in her life, the female is thereby 
less hable to be caught on a bait. The males seem to out- 
number the females considerably, but the balance is main- 
tained for reproduction by the fact that the roe of the aver- 
age female is two or three times as heavy as the milt of the 
average male. 
Though the eggs contain no oil globule, they float in the 
water. The milt also floats, and as its units are present 
in inestimable quantities, the fertilization of the eggs, 
which takes place in the open water, is insured. It is made 
yet more certain by the fact that during the spawning season 
the cod aggregate into immense shoals in shallow water. 
This free floating is a great protection to the eggs, as they 
cannot be browsed up in bulk off the bottom, like the spawn 
of herring, which adheres in masses to the rocks and gravels. 
The young cod grows rapidly, and in twelve months is about 
sixteen inches long, and in twenty-four months is a mature 
fish about twenty-four inches long. As a rule, however, it 
will not breed until it is three years old. Its youth is largely 
spent in eating its own brothers and sisters and cousins, 
and also in escaping being eaten. The career of any indi- 
vidual is apt to be a checkered one, and it is only one out of 
many that succeeds “in realizing any aspirations he may 
THE COD AND COD-FISHERY 285 
