COD. 
473 
tom. Ill, p. 235; Mela, Vert. Fenn., p. 298, tab. IX; 
Day, Fish. G:t Brit., Irel., vol. I, p. 275, tab. LXXVIII; 
Mob., Hcke, Fisch. Osts., p. 72; Br. Goode, Fisher., Fischer. 
Industr. U. St., sect. I, p. 200, tab. 58, A. 
Gctdus barbatus (p. p.) Lin., Syst. Nat., 1. c. 
Gadns ruber, Lacep., Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. V, p. 671; Hollb., 
Bohusl. Fisk., H. II, p. 31 c. tab. 
Gadus macrocephalus, Til., Mem. Acad. Imp. Sc. Petersb., 
tom. II (1807 et 1808), p. 350, tab. XVI et XVII. 
Morrhua Americana, Storer, Bost. Journ. Nat. Hist., vol. II 
(1838 — 1839), p. 448; Mem. Araer. Acad. Arts. Sc., n. ser., 
vol. VI (1859) p. 343, tab. XXVII, fig. 4. 
Obs. As we see by the above list of synonyms Willughby 
and, after his time, Artedi adopted only two of the three species 
that Schonevelde imagined he could distinguish in our Common Cod. 
In his description of the first of them, Asellus major, Willughby 
writes: Cauda plana fere et minirne forcipata: primus radius primes 
ab ano pinnae brevis est et spinosus. This appeared in Artedi as: 
Gadus .... cauda cequali fere cum radio primo spinoso, which Linnaeus 
corrected to: cauda subcequali, radio primo anali spinoso. This con- 
fusion between a simple but articulated (soft) ray and a spinous ray 
was long accepted, on Linnaeus’s authority", in combination with 
changes of growth, as a distinction between the Great Cod (Sw. 
kabiljo — morhua , morue in Belon) and the Lesser (young Cod and 
Baltic Cod — callarias). The name of Gadus morrhua is thus to be 
rejected as based on an error; and that of G. callarias must there- 
fore be recognised as the only right one, especially as it is of class- 
ical origin, though the ancient Greeks could not possibly have applied 
it to the Cod, which is not a Mediterranean fish. The first to reject 
the above character was Faber 6 ; but, like Nilsson c , who avoided 
making any reference to this character, he accepted the species as 
distinct. It was Fries, in the former edition of this work d , who first 
joined these hypothetical species into one, which he called u Torsken, 
G. Morrhua ” in the systematic distribution of this genus. He had 
been led to this conclusion in 1838 by his observations in the island- 
belt of BohuslaD, observations which were subsequently pursued and 
verified by Ekstrom. The latter summed up his results as follows : 
the form previously called Gadus morrhua really consists only of 
older specimens, and the Gadus callarias of former writers of young- 
specimens of the same species, which in shallower and not so salt- 
water, however, as in the Baltic, never attain a size that quite 
matches that of a full-grown Cod from the North Sea. A short time 
before Ekstrom suggested this explanation, Krgyer in Danmarks Fiske 
had discussed this question at length and come to the same result. 
The usual size of the Common Cod taken within 
the island-belts on the coast of Scandinavia is about 
6 dm. Those which are caught on banks in the open 
sea are larger, and pretty frequently attain a length 
of 12 dm. and a weight of about 17 kgm. Specimens 
of this size enter the Sound, according to Schagerstrom, 
and the south-west of the Baltic, according to Mobius 
and Heincke. The largest specimen from Kiel Bay 
that the latter writers had seen, weighed 19 kgm. 
Much larger Cod are, however, on record, and Brown- 
Goode gives instances from America in which the 
weight was as much as 72V 2 kgm. The Cod may 
attain this size on the brink of the ocean depths, but 
in Scandinavia it probably never grows so large. The 
largest specimen Kroyer had seen on the Lofoden Is- 
lands, was nearly 25 kgm. in weight and about 140 
cm. longb Like other true marine fishes it is some- 
what stunted in growth in the Baltic; but even in the 
south of the Gulf of Bothnia, off Ost.hammar, Lillje- 
borg found Cod 675 mm. long and 3 V 2 kgm. in weight. 
In Baggen Fjord, in the inner island-belt of Stockholm, 
the species attains a length of at least 600 mm/ 
° Schagerstrom has also fallen into tliis mistake. He saw, however, that in both the “species” the anal fins were exactly alike in this respect. 
b Naturg. Fisch. Islands, p. 105. 
c Prodr., 1. c. 
d Skund. Fiskar , 1st EcL, p. 78. 
e According to Earll (Rep. U. S. Fish. Comm. 1878, pp.733 — 4) the following proportions exist in the Cod between the length and the weight: 
a) in the males 
length varying between 42 and 80 cm., average length 694 mm., average weight 3’2 kgm. 
,, „ 84 „ 90 „ ,, „ 867 „ „ ,, 5'9 ,, 
„ „ „ 91 „ 117 „ „ „ 1,010 „ „ „ 9-7 „ 
b) in the females 
length varying between 47 and 80 cm., average length 674 mm., average weight 2'4 kgm. 
„ „ „ 81 „ 93 „ „ „ 868 „ „ „ 6-1 „ 
„ „ „ 94 „ 113 „ ., „ 1,031 „ „ „ 9-46 „ 
„ „ „ H4 „ 146 „ „ „ 1,280 „ „ „ 19-22 „ 
The smallest male was 42 cm. long and weighed 0'57 kgm.; the largest female 146 cm. long and 24'5 kgm. in weight. 
■f In his u Gotlands Fiskar ” (I. c., pp. 26, seq.) Professor LindstrOm directs attention to the so-called Doomsday Fish which has hung 
for several centuries in Wisby Cathedral, and the history of which, as told by Braunius (end of the 16th century), Bertius (1616), and 
Strelow (1633), was summed up by Haquin Spegel {Ruder a Gotlandica, Mss.) at the end of the 17th century as follows: “In the year 
1289 a large and rare fish was caught off Wisby, in the belly of which a new-born, living child was found that cried and screamed loudly. 
The fish was hung up in St. Mary’s Church, and a portion of it seems still to be preserved.” Linnaeus mentions it in his “ Olands ocli Got- 
lands Resa" (p. 165): “The fish that was hung in the same church over the picture of St. George, was a Piscis malacopterygius, cauda 
bifurca, pinnis dorsi dudbus , ani unica, cum altera intra hanc et caudam , e regionc posterioris pinna: dorsalis; the ignorant folk said that of 
this fish it was prophesied that the Day of Judgment should come when it had rotted away, and therefore could not be far off.” By the 
kind permission of the Chapter of the Cathedral we have been enabled to examine the existing remains of this fish, consisting of eighteen 
caudal vertebrae, a few rays from the posterior dorsal or anal fins, some of the interspinal bones, and a piece of dried flesh, all of which — 
Scandinavian Fishes. 
60 
