MIMIC BY. 



848 



Name of Fish. 



Weight of Fish. 



No. of Eggs. 



Jack 



lb. oz. 



28 



32 

 4 8 

 12 



28 

 2 

 2 



292,320 





595,200 





42,840 



Roach 



480,480 



Conger Eel 



15,191,040 



Smelt 



36,652 



Lump Fish 



116,640* 







The Codfish (Gadus morrhua) is a good example of survival 

 through fecundity. In a specimen weighing thirty pounds, with 

 a roe of only four pounds and a quarter, it has been calculated 

 that there were as many as 7,000,000 eggs, and in some cases 

 the number may be 9, 000, 000. t Here, besides other natural 

 enemies, man again is a great destroyer. Describing the Cod- 

 fishing off the coast of Labrador during the time of his visit 

 (1833), Audubon writes: — "As there may not be less than one 

 hundred schooners or 'pickaxes' in the harbour, three hundred 

 boats resort to the bank each day ; and, as each boat may procure 

 two thousand Cods per diem, when Saturday night comes about 

 six hundred thousand fishes have been brought to the harbour."! 

 According to Prof. Seeley : — " The banks of Newfoundland and 

 adjacent coasts have been fished since the year 1500. Here one 

 man may take upwards of five hundred fish in a day, and in a 

 year he is reckoned to capture ten thousand, though sometimes 

 fifteen thousand may be caught in a single voyage." § As regards 

 the wholesale destruction of the spawn of this fish, a single 

 instance will suffice. In one bird colony alone on the wild coast 

 of Norsk Finmarksen — that of Svaerholt-Klubben — are " millions 

 upon millions" of the small Gull (Rissa tridactyla). The food of 

 these multitudes of birds during the summer months consists for 



thousand have been taken from a fish of half a pound in weight" (' Royal 

 Nat. Hist.' vol. v. p. 336). 



* ' Life of Frank Buckland,' by G. C. Bompas, 2nd edit. p. 252. — "A 

 Turbot of 8 lb. carries 300,000 eggs ; a Sole of 1 lb. 130,000 eggs " (Ibid.$. 263). 



f It has been suggested that the greatest loss to the succeeding genera- 

 tion takes place at the very earliest stage of the egg, in that a large proportion 

 of the ripe eggs discharged in the water are not fertilized by the spermatozoa, 

 and hence perish (Mcintosh and Masterman, ' The Life-Hist. Brit. Marine 

 Food Fishes,' p. 236). 



I ' Aububon and his Journals,' vol. ii. p. 422, 



§ ' Cassell's Nat. Hist.' vol. v. p. 59, 



