28o Cod 



to Cod is only about one in a thousand it is too small 

 to be taken into account. 



Now the Cod is manifestly not an adventurous 

 fish. Like some domestic animals, he conceives it 

 to be his primary duty to get fat, and to that duty 

 he gives all his powers. But getting fat presupposes 

 an abundance of easily obtained food. And here, if 

 anywhere in the world, it is to be found. Squid ; 

 how could I ever have asked the question : ' Why 

 the squid ? ' As well ask why grass, hay, mangolds, 

 or any of the herbs and roots upon which our domestic 

 animals raised for food are fed. But their food has 

 to be provided for them by us, and sometimes the 

 providing thereof presents a very serious problem 

 when the elements are unpropitious, necessitating 

 the operations of commerce on a gigantic scale. But 

 the squid, at certain seasons, appear from their mys- 

 terious breeding places in the unsearchable recesses 

 of ocean in numbers like the grains of sand on the sea- 

 shore for multitude, and spread their countless myriads 

 over these ocean banks just where the Cod can gulp 

 them down at its leisure. Also, and incidentally, the 

 squid provides the fisherman with his best bait, for 

 a piece of tough tentacle properly impaled upon a 

 hook is not easily dislodged, and in the hands of an 

 experienced fisherman such a bait wiU serve for the 

 capture of several fish, no mean advantage in point 

 of time when the Cod are biting well. 



But so vast are the armies of the Cod that even 

 that mass of squid is presently devoured, all except 

 those who are, one would say, miraculously preserved 

 to reproduce the needed supply for next season. Long 

 before the pinch of hunger can be felt by the Cod, 

 however, comes the capelin, beautiful httle fish [Salmo 

 arcticus) which appear to be the fry of some large 



