38 AMBROSE ON ST. MARGARET S BAY FISHING GROUNDS. 



The in-shore cod, are what are known as school-fish, such as 

 those taken at Labrador, (but slightly larger,) as they run in larger 

 schools than the deep Avater fish. They spawn all around the Bay 

 on gravelly and sandy bottoms. They will eat their own spawn, 

 but have a great partiality for that of the lump-fish. When these 

 dainties are not at hand, however, the cod is not at all particular 

 about his diet. With " hunger-sauce" he will swallow almost any- 

 thing. A jackknife was found in the stomach of one of these fish at 

 Peggy's Cove. Another was found to have swallowed a "nipper," 

 • — i. e., a sort of Avoollen mitten, used by fishermen to prevent the 

 chafing of their hands with the line. Some twenty-five years ago, 

 a Mr. Weeks, of St. John, N.B., informed me that he found a man's 

 ear in the stomach of a cod, which he had bought in the fish mar- 

 ket of that city. When I was at Economy, N. vS., in the month of 

 March, 1846, a cod Vv-as caught near that place with a toad in its 

 stomach. This unfortunate toad had, no doubt, on the approach of 

 cold weather buried himself in some suitable place, but too near 

 the edge of one of those sandy cliffs which overhang the rushing 

 tides of the Basin of Minas, and this falling off at the coming out 

 of the frost had carried with it the semi-conscious toad, to serve as 

 a meal for the hungry cod prowling below. Unexpected reversal 

 of confident hope at inhumation ! 



"The best laid schemes of toads and men 

 Gang aft aglee." 



Mr. James S. Keizer, of Peggy's Cove, shot three murrs, on 

 one occasion, off at sea, about eight miles S.W. of Peggy's Point. 

 He immediately cut off the heads, which, with the intestines, he 

 threw overboard, preparatory to cooking the bii'ds. He then sailed 

 on, with a moderate breeze, about six miles from the spot where 

 the heads were left, to " Cross Island Eidge," threw over the 

 grapnel, and beginning to fish, very soon hauled up a cod with a 

 murr's head (quite fresh) in his stomach. He feels confident that 

 this was one of the heads so recently thrown overboard by himself, 

 at the spot six miles distant, as blood still remained on the 

 feathers. 



Codfish, like too many among mankind, will often by the indul- 

 gence of a depraved appetite, ensure their own destruction. The 

 Maine-law or sea-regulation, confines them to a safe species of drink. 



