THE COD FISHERY OF ALASKA. 199 
be proven to be only a matter of individual variation. The U. 8S. Commissioner of Fish and 
Fisheries, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, with a view to investigating the fisheries and fish of Alaska, 
sent the writer to that Territory,to collect specimens and statistics during the summer of 1880. In 
this way an opportunity was gained for comparing the Alaskan cod directly with that of New 
England and of Europe, and for determining beyond a doubt that the commercial cod of both oceans 
is the Gadus morrhua of Linneus. I have not seen fresh specimens from the Okhotsk, but there 
is no probability that it is different from the Alaskan. It is a matter of daily experience to find 
long-headed and short-headed cod in the same school off the New England coast or wherever the 
species occurs, as the length of the head is one of the most variable characters. I have just read 
in the Zoological Record for 1879 (Vol. XVI, published in 1881) the following sentence: “ Day re- 
cords and notices a fish captured at the mouth of the Thames, and referred to Gadus macrocephalus 
Tilesius, probably Yarrell’s ‘Lord Fish, and considered to be distinct ‘from G. vulgaris.” This 
agrees with my own idea of the macrocephalus form of cod. You can find it in almost any large 
school of the coinmon species. A series of cod illustrating the great amount of variation in this 
respect has lately been received from Alaska by the U.S. National Museum. 
Golden cod, red cod, and other alge forms are as well known at Kodiak and the Shumagins 
as they are around Cape Cod and Cape Ann. Even the beautiful lemon-yellow fish, which 
occasionally are found in the Ipswich Bay schools, are duplicated in Alaskan waters. Nor does 
the similarity between the commercial cod of the twq oceans end with external characters which 
are taken into account in determining specific relationship, for we find a wonderful resemblance 
in their habits and food. Thus, the shore fish about the islands make their appearance in schools 
similar to ours and similarly named: First, the “herring school;” next, the “lant school;” then 
the “‘capelin school,” followed by the “squid school” and the ‘winter school.” Besides these 
there is an abundance of Bank fish, which are larger than any of the schools here named. All of 
the food-fish of the cod here indicated are exceedingly abundant. The herring is not identical 
with the common sea herring of the Atlantic (Clupea harengus), but it is very closely related to it, 
and the differences which separate the two species are very slight. The commonest lant is the 
same as the most abundant one of our New England species, and the capelin is identical with our 
Eastern one. The squid or cuttle-fish is Octopus punctatus of Gabb—a species which reaches a 
large size and forms one of the preferred baits for cod. 
The cod come on the rocks in 25 to 30 fathoms about Kodiak, to spawn, in November and 
December, just as they do in the Atlantic, and these spawning fish, like their Eastern relatives, 
will sometimes lie perfectly still on the bottom and refuse to take the hook though it hangs 
temptingly in front of their noses. Young cod swarm near the shores, precisely as they were 
observed to do in Gloucester Harbor after the experiments of the U. 8S. Fish Commission with 
artificial propagation. On the 13th of July, 1880, our seine took young cod at Saint Paul, Kodiak 
Island. We dredged numbers of them near our anchorage at Belkoffsky, on the peninsula of 
Aliaska, July 23, 1880, averaging 13 inches in length. On the following day young cod of the 
same size were found in the stomach of a large one of ,the same species caught near Oleny Island 
in 7 fathoms of water. On the 1st of October, in the harbor of Chernoffsky, Unalashka Island, the 
cod fry were very abundant, and some of them had reached a length of 3 inches or more. At 
Iliuliuk, on the north end of the same island, young cod of the same length were seined at various 
times from October 6 to 18. They fairly swarmed around the wharves, eagerly biting at anything 
in the form of bait and readily fastening themselves on hooks intended for much larger fish. 
The resemblance between the Atlantic and Pacific cod-fishing grounds is strengthened by 
the presence in Pagific waters of a genuine pollock—not the fierce, cod-devouring tyrant of the 
