AMBROSE ON ST. MARGARET's BAY FISHING GROUNDS. 39 



but their food is a snare to many of them. They greedily eat gar- 

 bage, even of their own kind, and find backbiting at sea to be even 

 more dangerous than the like-named amusement on shore, for the 

 sound-bone of fish is too much for their digestion. Cod are fre- 

 quently caught with a sound-bone, or even the whole undigested 

 skeleton of a cod, cat-fish, or sculpin, in their stomachs, and part of 

 the bony structure protruding through among the intestines. 

 Others have diseased liver, that evidence of a disordered or weak 

 stomach. The sick fish are called " logies" from the heavy lifeless 

 feel of them on the line as they are drawn up from the bottom. 

 The livers of logy cod are always more or less diseased. They are 

 destitute of oil, and of a dark colour, and not unfrequently contain 

 abscesses filled with pus. The liver always shrinks away to far 

 less than the ordinary size, and the fish is found, though of large 

 frame, to be wasted to mere skin and bone. Young fish are very 

 rarely found to be inwardly diseased, so that perhaps, after all, the 

 logies are aged individuals whose vital organs are impahed by the 

 gradual decay of nature. 



The livers of all our codfish are of a dark colour and destitute 

 of oil, and the fish is watery in the early part of the spring ; but as 

 summer advances, and the herring strike in, the cod livers soon 

 give evidence of the good efiect of generous fare. Then the tail 

 becomes round, firm and fl.eshy, — a sure sign of a healthy fish. 



Having already given some idea of the cusk, in connection with 

 the codfish, I shall not at present dwell upon the peculiarities of 

 this excellent fish, which although increasing in numbers on our 

 Banks, are still not thoroughly well known by our fishermen. Like 

 the albicore, they appear to be of comparatively recent introduction 

 here. They are caught on the Banks with ripe spawn in them, by 

 which it would appear that they spawn in deep water; but I do not 

 hear of codfish, those irrepressible egg-eaters, being caught on the 

 Banks with spawn in their stomachs. Further investigation will 

 no doubt in some degree clear up the matter. 



There appear to be no logies among cusk,— -a singular fact (if it 

 be a fact), which piques the curiosity of the- student in Natural 

 History. 



Leaving this interesting fish for the present, we come to the 

 Hake or " Goat,"* as he is called by our fishermen, on account of the 



*More properly the "Spotted Codling." 



