COI). 
477 
is more than usually dark, as often occurs in 
the Baltic, it is called Black Cod ( Svarttorsk ). 
3. The Rock Cod (Bergtorsk) or Red Cod ( Rod - 
torsJc ) (PL XXII, fig. 3), the Norwegian ‘Tang 
Cod’ ( Taretor.sk ), red, with dense, tine spots 
and red tins, or with grayish brown tins and 
back, and red iris. 
The Cod is one of the most common fishes in the 
north of the Atlantic, at least about 300,000,000 or 
400,000,000 being taken annually in this ocean, and it 
is also of frequent occurrence in the north of the Pa- 
cific, though it has not yet been ascertained whether 
the range of the species is equally extensive there". 
In the Atlantic the species goes south from Spitsbergen 
and Greenland, on the east side to the Bay of Biscay, 
and on the west to Cape Hatteras. On the Scandina- 
vian coast it is common both to the west and in the 
Baltic, where it penetrates, as we have mentioned above, 
into the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, though according 
to Mela it is extremely rare in their inmost parts 6 . 
According to Brown-Goode it prefers water of an average 
temperature of from 35° to 42° Fahr. (+ 1 2 / 3 ° to +- 5 1 / 2 ° 
Cels.), and according to Juei/ the limits of the varia- 
tions of the temperature of the water in which the Cod 
will thrive, may be fixed between at least + 2° and 
+ 7° Cels. The species is most plentiful and attains 
its maximum size on the brinks of the great ocean- 
depths, to judge by the largest catches, which are made 
off Newfoundland and the Lofoden Is. We have no 
complete statistical reports of the Cod-fishery in the 
Baltic, but its annual value in each Swedish province 
cannot be more than 10,000 crowns (£550). In FI all and 
the annual value of the Cod-fishery is about 40,000 
crowns (£2,200). In Bohuslan the statistics are more 
complete, and give an annual value of about 650,000 
— 680,000 crowns (£35,750 — £37,400). In 1888, on 
the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, 729,217 cwt. 
of Cod were taken, of a value of £339,090L The 
average yearly catch in Norway, for the years 1866 — 81, 
was about 1 5 x / 2 million fish of a value of about 13 
million crowns (£715,000). The annual catch on the 
coast of Labrador, Newfoundland, Canada, and the United 
States is estimated by Hind at 162,500,000 fish. 
The Cod likes deep water, and comes into the 
shallows, in about 15 — 30 fathoms of water, only dur- 
ing the spawning-season and while it is young. The 
largest specimens are always found in very deep water, 
as much as 100 fathoms or even more in depth. Some 
of the larger specimens, however, repair in late autumn, 
in November, to rocky arid precipitous coasts, appar- 
ently to feast on crabs and small fishes before retiring 
to their winter-quarters. From the deep water where 
it passes the winter, the Cod ascends in order to spawn 
very early in the year in the east of the Atlantic, in 
January and February on the seaward side of the is- 
land-belts and in northern regions, generally later further 
in among the islands, where most of the spawning fish 
are small, and in the Baltic. In the island-belt of Bo- 
husliln the spawning-season rarely begins before May, 
earlier or later according to the early or late arrival of 
the spring. This is also the case in the Scotch firths, 
according to Parnell; and off Gothland, according to 
Lindstrom, the Cod spawns in April. Probably, how- 
ever, the spawning-season is of lengthy duration, for 
all Cod do not spawn simultaneously ; — the older gener- 
ally spawn earlier than the younger — and each Cod 
requires several weeks — according to Earll sometimes 
two months — to deposit its spawn, as the whole roe 
does not ripen at once, but only partially and gradually. 
The eggs are extremely numerous, though their number 
varies with the size of the fish. In a female 3 ft. 3 in. 
long and 21 lbs. in weight Earll estimated the number 
of the eggs at 2,732,237, and in another 75 lbs. in 
weight, whose ovaries weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz., at 9,100,000. 
Earll assumes that only about 1 / i of these eggs could 
grow ripe for depositing each week during the spawning- 
season. During his investigations of the Cod-fishery 
off Cape Ann (Mass.) in 1878 — 79, he found the first 
spawning female on the 2nd of September, and at the 
beginning of December half the specimens taken were 
in spawning condition. In this locality, too, the spawn- 
ing was at its height in February and March, but even 
“ Of the fishery on the coast of Alaska Bean writes (Oat. Coll. Fish. U. iS. Nat. Mas., Gt. Intern. Fish. Exhib. London 1883, p. 6): 
“The most important species, commercially, is the Common Cod ( Gadus morrhua ), which is exceedingly plentiful on certain banks in the 
Gulf of Alaska and in the vicinity of the islands of the Aleutian chain. This fish will some day be as valuable in the Pacific as it is now 
in the Atlantic.” The range of the Cod also extends, according to Bean (Fish. Comm. Rep. 1882, p. 1039), from Puget Sound north to 
the Arctic boundary of Behring Sea and west to Okhotsk. 
b According to Grimm ( Fishing and Hunting on Russian Waters , p. 11) the Cod goes quite up to Kronstadt. 
c Norsk Fiskeritidende, 8:de Aarg. (1889), p. 301. 
d Fish Trades Gazette, 12th. and 26th Jan., 1889. 
