232 THE ICHTHYOLOGY OF NOVA SCOTIA : 



narrow strip of land, in places not much more than a quarter of a mile 

 in width. 



Now the solution of this apparent mystery is not so difficult as some 

 persons would imagine. We are all aware that each animal has a parti- 

 ality for some particular kind of food, and wherever that food is to he 

 found in the greatest abundance, there will be found the animal that 

 feeds upon it. Indeed, so well known is this habit to English entomo- 

 logists, that, when in search of insects, the sight of a field of thistles, or 

 a patch of nettles at a particular season, proclaims the habitat of certain 

 species which frequent those plants. The buffalo of the west prefers the 

 open prairie, clothed with rich succulent grass ; the moose, as Capt. Har- 

 ley informs us in his widely-known " Sporting Adventures," loves to 

 dwell in forest solitudes, and browse on the leaves and tender branches 

 of deciduous trees ; while the tiny mole scoops its tortuous way through 

 the rich mould of the alluvial valley, where it finds an abundant supply 

 of its favourite earthworm. And so it is with the various fishes ; the 

 halibut, whose ponderous form we so often see in the Halifax market, re- 

 sides, as it were, on the sandy slopes of the deep, where it feeds upon the 

 smaller fiat fish, mollusks and crustaceans. The cod seeks its prey on 

 the well known " Banks," while the shad delights in the muddy waters 

 of estuaries, where it fattens, according to Perley, on the shrimp and 

 shad worm. In each position these fish find the food they are partial to. 

 But, although I imagine food to be the great inducement for fish in- 

 habiting particular localities, there is yet another reason to be advanced, 

 — search for a suitable position for spawning. These two circumstances, 

 I firmly believe, have more to do with the appearance of vast shoals of 

 fish, visiting, or residing in particular districts, periodically or otherwise, 

 than aught else. In no other way can we account for the vast annual 

 or continual gatherings of certain fishes in the waters of Europe and 

 north-east America, than by presuming that this search for food and 

 suitable positions for spawning are the main motives. Take the cod 

 fishery of the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, that wonder of ichthyo- 

 logy, where, throughout an extent of submarine formation measuring 

 no less than six hundred miles from north to south, and in places two 

 hundred miles from east to west, countless myriads of gadoid fishes have 

 afforded for more than three centuries and-a-half, profitable employ- 

 ment to the fisherman, and wholesome food for tens of thousands of the 

 human race. To account for this, we have in the first place to consider 

 the formation of this vast submarine bank, and the peculiar inducements 

 it presents to the innumerable company congregated there. The Bank 

 lies, as it were, at the point where the Gulf Stream and Arctic Current 

 meet each other, and struggling for the mastery deposit the foreign 

 matter they contain on this spot of contention. The Arctic Current it 

 is which has formed, and is still forming, the bank itself, by bringing 

 down annually, through the medium of icebergs, thousands of tons of 

 earth, rocks, and gravelly matter from the frozen north. These icebergs 



