470 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
vent equal to the length of the ventral fins. The j 
second (hind) coil of the intestine (the first coil is ; 
not half so long) and the long, left lobe of the liver 
extend to the bottom of the cavity. The perito- 
neum is ashy gray. The air-bladder is large, broad 
behind, and furnished with large, firm lateral bands, 
projecting from it like the teeth of a saw. The liver 
has numerous small lobes, but as usual only two prin- 
cipal ones, the left being the longer, and one, shorter, j 
middle lobe. The gall-bladder is oblong, with pointed 
bottom and very thin membrane. The pyloric appen- j 
dages are narrower and longer than in the Whiting. 
Their number may rise to about 200. 
The chief singularity in the skeleton of the Had- 
dock is that the clavicular bones are terete, swollen, as 
it were, in their anterior (horizontal) part, but pointed 
as usual — as Olafsen describes them: “thick, oblong, 
round, white, and very easily worked, but much softer 
and looser than ivory. The Icelanders make various 
trifles out of them, mostly chess-men, which they dye 
green with oxide of copper”. The posterior (angular) 
part of the posttemporal bone is also swollen. 
The Haddock is an Atlantic species, but seems to 
prefer the eastern parts of this ocean. Still, it is by 
no means rare on the east coast of North America — 
between lats 38° and 53° N., according to Brown- 
Goode — and is taken there, occasionally at least, in 
greater numbers even than the Cod. But on that side 
of the Atlantic its range, as far as we know it, is be- 
yond comparison more confined than on this, where it 
occurs from about lat. 78° to 44° N. Kroyer observed 
it “about 13 miles off Spitsbergen, in about lat. 77° NT; 
and the Swedish Expedition of 1861 took a small young 
Haddock (see above) in a trailnet in Ice Fjord. The 
Spitsbergen Expedition of 1868 paid a visit of some 
days to Bear Island; and at the anchorage of the Sofia 
on the east side of the island the crew caught numbers 
of Haddocks with handlines. Mela" states that the 
Haddock is common on the Murman coast, and thinks 
it probable that the species occurs in the White Sea. 
In Iceland, according to Faber*, it is very valuable to 
the inhabitants. On the coast of Greenland it is un- 
known. The Haddock-fishery is pursued along the whole ] 
Atlantic coast of Europe, down to central France; but | 
in the Bay of Biscay, according to Moreau, the Had- 
dock is rare, and further south, as well as in the Me- 
diterranean, it is unknown. Along the whole coast of 
Norway and the west coast of Sweden down to the 
Sound the Haddock is common, but south of Hveen it 
is rare, and, as Nilsson points out, has never been 
caught on the Baltic coast of Sweden. On the German 
coast it has never been found east of the coast of 
Mecklenburg; but it is sometimes found in Kiel Bay, 
where, according to Mobius and Heincke, specimens 
60 cm. long have been taken. 
The Haddock likes fairly deep water — according 
to Malm, from 12 to 50 fathoms in depth — with a 
clayey or soft sandy bottom, which it always hugs 
closely. Though always a shore-fish, it is by no means 
stationary, but keeps roving about in large or small 
companies along the deep channels among the island- 
belt, the younger specimens in large shoals, the older 
in smaller ones. Thus, one can never be sure of finding 
this fish at spots where it has formerly been plentiful, 
nor, though one has made a good catch on one day, 
of taking a single specimen on the morrow. The Had- 
dock is never seen quite close in shore, not even the 
fry; and the seasons seem to influence it but little in 
the choice of its haunts. Kroyei; has already remarked 
that off several parts of the Danish coasts the Haddock 
has disappeared for years, and then returned. Nilsson 
makes the same remark of Kullen, where it is said to 
be plentiful periodically, every eighth or tenth year. 
Numbers of similar observations have been made in 
America^ The causes of these migrations may be va- 
rious; but one of the most probable explanations of the 
periodical abundance or scarcity of the Haddock seems 
to lie in the needed supply of food. Like its kindred 
species, the Haddock is a fish-of-prey that lives on other 
fishes; but it is also very fond of lower organisms, 
shellfish, worms, and OphiurcB, which induce it to make 
its home on soft bottoms. Its comparatively small 
mouth naturally restricts its voracity; but when the 
young Herrings enter the shallower inlets among the 
islands, the Haddock joins their pursuers, and is thus 
enticed into shallower water than it usually frequents. 
On these occasions a few Haddocks are taken in the 
Herring-seines. 
“ Vert . Fenn ., p. 299, tab. IX. 
b Naturrj . cl . Fisclie Islands , p. 103. 
c See Brown-Goode, 1. c. 
