108 GILPIX OX THE POLLACK. 



much smaller. The stomach was filled with sea urchins, star fish, shrimps, s 

 small clam, and a pultaceous mass. Colour when fresh from the sea, bluish 

 ash, with purple and golden reflections, becoming darker when stale, below 

 silvery with minute black dots, scales larger than cod, colour of fins transpa- 

 rent, light purple, with light yellow edges, a black oblong spot above pectoral 

 fin, halfway from insertion reaching to lateral line, lateral line black, arching 

 from above the opereles, nearly to back of second dorsal, then straight to tail. 



In studying the haddock, we find, him a weaker fish than the 



cod, coming uearer the shore in summer, and retiring to a less 



distance in winter, choosing rather molluslis, and star fishes, and 



sea urchins, for his food, — migrating often in large shoals, and 



often seen grubbing with nose downward, on the bottom. He 



will take a fly from the surface, at times. He never attains a 



size above eight or ten pounds. As a merchantable fish, he has 



half the value of cod, not having thickness enough for drying, 



and is only taken when cod are scarce, except for supphing the 



fresh fish-market, or for curing as ' ' Finnic baddies." When fresh, 



the superior flakiuess of his flesh causes him to be preferred to 



cod. His spawning time is uncertain, or, perhaps, extended. 



In August females are taken filled with spawn in Digby basin. 



In the fish taken in December, the ovaries were about three 



inches long. With a rare want of natural history, fishermen 



consider him the fish St. Peter took the silver tribute from, the 



black spot upon his side being the mark of the Saint's fingers. 



Unlike the cod, he varies but little in his colour. 



The American Pollack or Coal Fish. 



Description of a Pollack taken in Halifax harbour, December, 



1867 :— 



Length 2 feet 11 inches, head 8^- Inches, weight about ten pounds. The 

 form of the fish is strait ; the back line ascending but slightly from nose to 

 top of back. The whole figure is round, and tapers to a small, handsome, 

 and deeply forked tail, which is about the breadth of the fish opposite first 

 anal's, anterior edge. The line of belly not prominent, and the fins propor- 

 tionally small. The mouth is small, the lower lip longer than the upper, the 

 eye large, nostrils double, and both sit well up in the head. Diameter of 

 eye 1 1-1() inch, and about .3^ inches from tip of jaw. The upper lips are 

 formed entirely of the intermaxillaries, and the free end of the maxillaries 

 enter a cheek pouch when the mouth is closed. There are three small dorsal, 

 and two small anal fins, the pectoral fan shaped, and ventral reduced to a few 

 filiinents. The first dorsal is triangular, nearly as high as long, fourth ray 

 highest ; the second dorsal begins more than an inch from the first, is double 

 its length, and about its height, third raj longest ; tlie third begins nearly 

 two inches from the second, it i.s a little longer and not so high as first, the 



