134 



Appendices to Fourth Ammal Eeport 



contribute an important and staple portion of the food supply all along 

 the East Coast of Scotland. 



2. The Crustacea come next in importance. The forms of most frequent 

 occurrence, such as the hermit crabs, the squat lobsters, Hyas coarctatus, 

 and several species of the shrimp tribe, are generally distributed along the 

 East Coast. 



3. The moUuscan contents of the stomachs are specially characterised 

 by the large percentage of young and immature forms. j 



4. The worms supply a considerable portion of the haddock's food ,a?il 

 along the East Coast, and their nature and distribution especially require 

 further study. 



5. The haddock is not to a great extent piscivorous. 



6. The haddock will, in certain districts, leave its usual feeding ground 

 in order to feed on herring spawn when this is to be obtained. 



It should be stated that in a preliminary report of this kind the con- 

 clusions arrived at can at best only have a temporary and tentative value. 

 With further investigation these will most certainly require modification, 

 while at the same time their extension and elaboration will doubtless 

 teach us more of the habits and migrations of the food fishes. 



.f; - -ifj ,vi9m^a \-mL ob^ at)i)bU^Jd^r;uiiJ ■ mo-z/o d ^( 

 ^ ' ' IIL "' ■ 



PRELIMINARY REPORT 0^ THE FOOD OF THE COD. By 

 Geoege Brook, F.L.S. 



The present report gives an account of the contents of about 300 

 stomachs of the cod. In a large number of cases the stomachs containing 

 food have been forwarded to the Central Laboratory preserved in spirit ; 

 in other cases lists of the contents of a large number of stomachs have been 

 supplied by the Fishery officers. The information supplied by the Boards , 

 officers at Anstruther, Berwick, and Girvan is especially worthy of men-,-] 

 tion. In these cases, however, it is only possible to indicate here the 

 groups to which food material belonged, as in most cases the species were 

 not identified. With the exception of information from Girvan and a 

 single specimen from Lewis, the whole of the material has been supplied 

 from the East Coast. We have no information as to the food of the cod 

 in the latter part of the year, the whole of the statistics being obtained 

 from January to June inclusive. Mr Thomas Scott has identified the 

 majority of the specimens included in this report, and I am also indebted, 

 to him for the tables. , i n 



The cod is well known for its voracious appetite, and also for the re-, i 

 markable variety of its food. Dr Day has already called attention to a^, , 

 number of cases in which objects have been found in stomachs of the cod,jj 

 which were not marine forms : Two cases of this class have come under. 

 our notice during the past year. In a cod's stomach from Lybster part of 

 a sea-fowl was found, probably a guillemot. The contents of this stomach 

 were remarkable. There were representatives of all the classes of organ- ^ 

 isms which are tabulated in the present report. The other stomach was \ 

 from Berwick, and contained a whole specimen of one of the larks, pro-]r, 

 bably the meadow pipit. The only other contents in this stomach were 

 the partly-digested remains of two or three hermit crabs (Pagurus Bern- 

 liardus). Such cases, interesting though they may be as curiosities, only 

 show the omnivorous appetite of the cod, and do not aid us in studying . 

 the normal food supply. According to Professor Brown Goode and others 



