478 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
oil the 10th of May half the females caught had not 
finished spawning, and in June, when the fish deserted 
the coast, a few females, though with ripe roe, had not 
yet quite emptied their ovaries. The size as well as 
the number of the eggs varies with the size of the fish. 
In Cod 2 x / 4 — 3 2 / 3 kgm. in weight Earle found eggs 
which after impregnation were 2’8 mm. in diameter, 
while in other females, IIV3 kgm. in weight, the im- 
pregnated ova measured 3‘2 — 3‘6 mm. 
During the spawning season the females keep near 
the bottom, the males probably joining them there, 
but seeming generally to swim higher in the water. 
The greatest number of breeding females, according to 
Earle, are caught on long-lines with the bait lying on 
the ground, while the males are taken at this season 
on long-lines and hand-lines with the bait held free, 
away from the bottom. The roe is also fertilized while 
Cod fry 2 1 / 2 — 3 in. (38 — 76 mm.) in leu. 
„ 10-11 „ (254—279 „ ) „ ,. 
„ 17—18 „ (432—457 „ ) „ ,. 
„ 22 „ (559 „ ) „ 
In autumn, according to Saks, when they have 
attained a length of about 1 dm., the fry begin to 
descend to the bottom in some fathoms of water, and 
in November and December he found young specimens, 
between 1 5 l / 2 and 18V 3 cm. long, at a depth of 8 — 12 
fathoms, generally on the edge of deep water. At mid- 
summer he took Cod at a depth of 100 — 150 fathoms 
between 20 and 30 Norwegian miles off shore. 
The smallest ripe male Earle met with, weighed 
3 V 2 lbs. (about lV 2 kgm.), and the smallest ripe female 
5 lbs. (2V 4 kgm.) Hence he concludes that the males 
are ripe in their third year, the females not until their 
fourth. After this period they seem to spawn regularly 
every year, for at the beginning of the fishing-season 
he did not meet with a single adult Cod whose sexual 
organs showed any sign of sterility. 
The Cod is one of the most voracious fishes. Its 
food is probably composed strictly of small fishes, crusta- 
ceans, and worms, but in its fierce hunger, especially 
after the spawning- season, it swallows everything that 
attracts its attention in the least. Even stones are some- 
times found in its stomach, and the fishermen then say 
that the Cod has taken in ballast to sink into deep 
water. The probable explanation of this, however, as 
Kroyer has already suggested, is that the stones have 
been swallowed, not for their own sake, but for that 
floating in the water, and rises higher and higher to- 
wards the surface, where the first stages of the develop- 
ment are passed. This discovery -was made by Sars 
in 1864, and has subsequently given rise to many other 
similar observations. When the young fish leaves the 
egg, it still retains the original (foetal) curvature of 
the body, says Earll, but it soon straightens out, and 
is then about five-sixteenths of an inch in length, with 
large, but highly transparent yolk-sac, which is ab- 
sorbed in from 10 to 15 days. The fry now seek 
shelter under Medusa and other floating objects, with 
which it drifts about and approaches land. During 
the course of the summer Cod-fry are found in shoals 
at the surface of inlets and channels. The growth is 
rapid, but as usual irregular, these shoals consisting of 
young specimens of very different sizes. Earll esti- 
mates the average growth as follows: 
gth are '/ 0 year old 
,, 1 1 1, years ,, and weigh 7 — 8 oz. 
oi o o 1 / Ik, 
jy & / 2 ” n v ^ ^ / 4 1Ub - 
3 */., ,, ,, ,, ,, 4 5 ,, 
of the small marine animals with which they have been 
covered. In temperament the Cod seems to be very 
sluggish, and its movements in the water are anything 
but active. Most methods of catching it are, therefore, 
based on its voracity. In deep water it is generally 
taken on hand-lines (handsnore or stor snore) or long- 
lines (linor or backor). The hand-line is a strong, 
three-stranded cord, about 170 or 180 in. long, with 
a somewhat finer snood, 1 metre long, to which are 
attached the hook and a heavy plummet of lead. The 
long-line is a three-stranded, tarred line, about 5 cm. 
in circumference and about 225 m. in length. To a 
line of this size 50 hooks are attached, each with a 
snood a metre and a half long, and all the snoods, with 
the exception of every fifth one, are furnished with a 
float to keep the hook and bait from the bottom. On 
the snoods that have no float, Skate are taken. Each 
fishing-boat that sails from Bohuslan in spring, takes 
with it 30 or 40 of these long-lines to the fishing-banks 
west of Jutland and Norway. Within the island-belt 
of Bohuslan the Cod is taken with the sladbrj, a finer 
hand-line, generally made of horsehair and with two 
hooks. A bait of mussels, or, still better, of pieces of 
fish, especially fresh Herring and Mackerel, is used. 
Another method of taking Cod, less common in Sweden, 
but more so in Norway", is with gill-nets, both at the 
Cf. also Collins, Bull. U. S. Fish. Commission 1881, p. 1. 
