GADEAlfS AND PLEUEOjSTECTS. 341 



proceedings. In spring the trading captains bring their 

 vessels to the bank as early as practicable ; the object 

 of this being to secure a good station, which, when 

 most of the shipping is already on the spot, may not be 

 quite so easy to effect. When the vessels have cast an- 

 chor, the waters around are speedily enlivened with a 

 flotiUa of boats sent out by their respective crews to pro- 

 cure bait ; the baits used vary considerably, but owing 

 to the great voracity* of the fish, all succeed ; cod, like 

 sharks, swallowing not only every kind of fish and 

 shell-fish, whole or in fragments, fresh or salted, but 

 bolting even bits of wood or red cloth, and sometimes, 

 as appears from the subjoined anecdote, a whole book.f 



* This voracity is in a great measure accounted for by a very 

 rapid assimilation, wMck can convert haddocks and other prey 

 into cod in a few hours :' the potency of the gastric juice being 

 such as to turn the shells of lobsters and crabs reA, as if they had 

 been recently boiled. 



t A fish, furnishing the University of Cambridge with a reli- 

 gious feast, was the occasion of a tract entitled, ' Vox Piscis, or 

 the Book Pish,' containing three treatises, which were found in 

 the belly of a cod in Oam.bridge market at midsummer eve, 1626. 

 This fish is said to have been taken in Lynn Deeps, and was car- 

 ried to the Vice-Chancellor by the beadle on the discovery of a 

 book within it : as it made its appearance at the commencement, 

 the very time when good learning and good cheer were most ex- 

 pected, it was quaintly remarked, 'that this sea guest had brought 

 his hooTc and his carcase to furnish both' (Moule). It is to be 

 hoped that the learning he brought ia his belly was not so out of 

 season as he himself must have been at midsummer. The parallel 

 story of a shark who, having swallowed the log-book of a vessel 

 that had been scuttled after the massacre of the crew, and af- 

 terwards repenting, took the first hook that offered, and turned 



• If a haddock be left on a small line for a tide over a cod- 

 bank, it generally disappears, and a cod is found occupyiag its 

 place on the barbs ; six hours are said to suffice for the conver- 

 sion of any other fish into ' gadus morrhua.' 



