GILPIN — ON THE ODD FISH. 103 



miles seaward. As the winter approaches he retires, until our 

 iishermeu have to put thirty miles of sea between them and 

 their homes, and to pull him two lines and a half, or eighty 

 fathoms, from his feeding grounds. No doubt these migrations 

 are partial and that there always are fish on the banks that never 

 migrate, and others that never leave our shores. Indeed one 

 must believe that the fish on the grand banks of Newfoundland 

 never migrate. We learn from Mr. Ambrose's very valuable 

 paper that there are a succession of reefs or ledges parallel with 

 our coast and running north-east and south-west, and that on 

 these summits of submarine hills the cod resort, — the sickly fish 

 resorting to the inshore ledges, whilst the finer and healthy ones 

 with longer superior jaws and more prominent eyes, are taken 

 in the mail steamers' track, and from whence Aspotagen, the 

 highest laud in the Province, is thrown upon the horizon, about 

 thirty miles from the coast. The pursuit of food causes these 

 migrations. Now, as regards food, it may be said of the cod 

 as of most fish, nothing comes amiss, he opens his jaws and 

 every thing slips down. To satiate a craving appetite is his 

 perpetual instinct, and yet he has some discriminating tastes, 

 he loves squid, he will not take salt bait on shore, though taking 

 it greedily on the banks, among mollusks the glycemeris is very 

 sweet to him. The stomachs of those taken on the banks are 

 usually filled with herring, young cod fish, Norway haddock, young 

 cat fish small mackerel, various mollusks, the glycemeris, and a 

 large black coquog, and star fishes. Should he have indulged in 

 fish spawn, it has probably been digested. This may be called 

 his usual fare. Near in shore he picks up crabs and lobsters, 

 and the mollusks, or sea shells, are much more numerous and 

 varied. Of his casual fare may be enumerated grouse heads 

 and entrails thrown over by some passing steamer, sea ducks, 

 which he must have picked up floating near the surface, various 

 stones dropped over by ballast boats or adherent to muscles 

 which he has swallowed, (one of six pounds weight was long 

 kept in the Halifax fish market as being taken from a cod's 

 stomach). In Newfoundland he is said to follow the capelin 

 and feed upon them. In New Brunswick, Perley says he fol- 

 lows the herring to feed upon their spawn and young fry. 



