GILPIN OX THE HADDOCK. 107 



women and children, ply the oar, or whiten the ocean with their 

 sails, or spread their nets upon the surface, or rake the bottom 

 with their hooks and lines of that narrow neutral ground of 

 banks and bars, bounded on the right by the great gulf stream, 

 flowing north-east, and on the left by the cold arctic current, 

 flowing south-west. Its opposite flowing surfaces teem with 

 moving masses of life, its floor is paved with stationary mollusks. 

 Here a great Providence spreads a daily banquet. Here is 

 perpetually solved the great problems of consumption and 

 supply, of reproduction and destruction. Whales, porpoises, 

 and seals ; innumerable birds, either on the wing, or nimble 

 divers in hordes that darkened the air, once thinned the excessive 

 reproduction of these marine hosts. Man has stepped unto the 

 scene, and they have all vanished, and it is for our Legislatures 

 to determine his vicarious position, to amend it by severe laws 

 and restrictions, if his waste or wants are in excess of reproduc- 

 tion ; or, on the contrary, if wdth all his powers, he but healthily 

 keeps alive over production, then it is for them to take ofi" every 

 restriction founded in ignorance, and to foster by bounties our 

 toiling fellow subjects, who follow the sea for their living. 



The Haddock. 

 Description of a haddock taken in Halifax harbour, Decem- 

 l)er, 1867:— 



Length, 20 inches, of head 5 inches, a small fish. Outline more elegant 

 than cod, the profile slightly concave, and head carinated. The whole head 

 more bony, the lips fleshy, upper lip longest, lower with a slight barbel, scales 

 over the cheeks and side of head, nose pointed, nostrils double, small, with the 

 eye placed high in the head, eye large, diameter 1 1-10 inch, nearly two 

 diameters from tip of nose, irides silvery, with bronze spots, upper lips formed 

 of the intermaxillary bones, the free end of maxillary fitting into a side 

 pouch when mouth closed, teeth small and in irregular bands or rows in upper 

 and lower jaws, none in palatine arch, two round osseous masses in upper jaw, a 

 third in lower jaw fitting to the inside of throat, in front of swallow. The first 

 dorsal triangular with the third and fourth rays prolonged to sharp points, 

 posterior edge concave. The second and third dorsal one half height of first, 

 triangular, one half as high as long. Caudal forked, ventral subjugular, 

 white, rays prolonged to filiments, pectoral ovate, reaching opposite insertion of 

 second dorsal. First and second anal triangular, generally inserted opposite 

 second and third dorsal. 



Fin rays, 1 D. 15, 2 D. 23, 3 D. J 8, C. 35 or 40, P. 18-19, Y. 6, 

 VA, 24, 2'A. 21. 



On being opened it presented the same appearance as the cod, large and 

 thin lobed liver, numerous cceca, air bladder smaller, the two appendixes verj 



