Alaska Codfish 



The principal loss is probably due to failure of impregnation, 

 to great numbers being thrown upon the shore by the waves, 

 and to the vast numbers eaten by various animals, including 

 fishes, birds and invertebrates. 



Commercially the cod is most important. In the matter 

 of persons engaged, vessels employed, capital invested and value 

 of catch, the taking of codfish in the United States is more ex- 

 tensive than any other fishery for fish proper. At least 600 ves- 

 sels are engaged taking cod; they carry about 7,000 men, and 

 are valued at $3,000,000. The catch in 1898 amounted to more 

 than 96,000,000 pounds, with a first value of about $2,000,000. 



Cod are taken with hand and trawl lines, baited with fish, 

 squid, etc., and fished for from small boats, or the vessel's deck. 

 The principal grounds are the "banks" — Grand, Georges, West- 

 ern, Quereau, etc. 



The cod is propagated artificially on a more extensive scale 

 than any other marine fish. The number of cod fry liberated by 

 the United States Fish Commission up to 1898 was 449,764,000. 

 The output for 1896-97 was 98,000,000, and the unmistakable 

 economic results which have attended these efforts warrant all 

 the time and money devoted to them, and justify the greatest 

 possible expansion of the work. 



The common cod is greenish or brownish, subject to great 

 variations, sometimes yellowish or reddish, the back and sides 

 with numerous rounded brownish spots; lateral line pale; fins 

 dark. 



Alaska Codfish 



Gadus macroccphalus Tilesius 



This cod is very abundant in Bering Sea, on both shores, 

 and ranges southward on our coast as far as Oregon on the off- 

 shore banks. It is usually found in 15 to 130 fathoms, and is an 

 important food-fish, though not held in as high esteem as the 

 common cod of the Atlantic. Externally, few if any important 

 differences are observable between the two, but the air-bladder 

 or "sound" of the Pacific species is markedly smaller. 



Colour, brownish, lighter below; back and sides with numer- 

 ous brownish spots; first anal and ventral fins dusky, other fins 



pale. 



515 



