232 COMMON COD FISH. Class IV, 



ocean fish, and never met with in the Medi- 

 terranean sea.* It affects cold climates, and 

 seems confined between the latitudes 66° and 

 50° : those caught north and south of those 

 degrees being either few in quantity, or bad in 

 quality. The Greenland fish are small and 

 emaciated through want of food, being very 

 voracious, and having in those seas a dearth of 

 provision. This locality of situation is common 

 to many other species of this genus, most of 

 them being inhabitants of the cold seas, or such 

 as lie within zones that can just clame the title 

 of temperate. There are, nevertheless, certain 

 species found near the Canary Islands, called 

 Cherny, j" of which we know no more than the 

 name ; but according to the unfortunate Cap- 

 tain Glass, are better tasted than the Newfound- 

 land kind. 



The great rendezvous of the cod fish is on the 

 banks of Newfoundland, and the other sand 

 banks which lie off the coasts of Cape Breton, 

 Nova Scotia, and New England. They prefer 

 those situations, on account of the quantity of 

 w r orms produced in those sandy bottoms, which 

 tempt them to resort there for food : but another 



* None (says Captain Armstrong in his history of Minorca). 

 of the Aselli or cod fish kind, frequent our shores, p. 163. 

 t Hist. Canary Islands, 198, 



