MB. W. LAUGHRIN ON THE FOOD OF THE COD AND LING. 165 



Observations on the Choice of Food in the Cod and Ling. By 

 "William Latjghrin, A.L.S., of Polperro. 



[Read June 19, 1862.] 



For a considerable time I have been in the habit of employing 

 the favourable opportunities which a residence in this place has 

 afforded me in examining the stomachs of fishes caught with a 

 line, for the purpose of discovering the kind of food on which they 

 live in the ocean, and especially that I might procure an insight 

 into the sorts to which, in the midst of abundance, they are accus- 

 tomed to give the preference ; and I beg leave to communicate to 

 the Linnean Society one or two of the results of my researches as 

 applied more especially to two species of the family of Codfishes 

 For the sake of accuracy, I think it desirable that my observations 

 on some other kinds of fishes should' be held in reserve for a time, 

 in order that further research may enable me to speak with a 

 higher degree of confidence regarding them. 



Within a certain range of the ocean, there are few fishes which are 

 marked with greater eagerness after food than the Cod, Ling, and 

 Haddock ; and, like others of the same family which are furnished 

 with a barb below the lower jaw, their search after prey is for the 

 most part limited to the bottom. At first view of the contents of 

 their stomachs their eagerness for food appears to be indiscriminate, 

 at least for such objects as they are able to swallow whole ; for it 

 does not appear that either of them possesses the power of biting 

 off a portion of any substance they might be disposed to feed on. 

 From the appearance of their mouths, also, it might be con- 

 cluded that they possess but little, if any, sense of taste. In 

 the matter of choice as regards food, the Codfish and Haddock 

 are much alike, as I conclude from having found in them the 

 various kinds of stalk-eyed Crustaceans usual in our waters, with 

 a few exceptions, as well as shell-fish and encrusting corals, 

 the latter being generally the various sorts of Lepralia that have 

 spread themselves over the stones lying on the bottom where these 

 fishes haunt ; and there is reason to believe that when this animal 

 crust has become digested, the stones are thrown up from the 

 stomach by a voluntary action of the animal. An object some- 

 times found in the stomach of the Cod is also a kind of Aphrodite, 

 and I have felt convinced that two species of these animals are 

 sometimes met with. But what has particularly attracted my 

 notice is the abundance of Crustaceans, both as regards species 

 and individuals, found in the Cod and Haddock, with the even 



