178 
MALACOPTERYGII. 
“ ( Alosa communis, Cuv., Yarr.) Shad. — By no means uncommon. It attains 
a considerable size, the extreme length of the specimen examined being 2 feet 2 
inches.” — Ord. Survey , Derry , p. 15. 
In Sampson’s L. Derry (1802) it is remarked, p. 343 (8vo edit.), that 
“ there is a fish called rock-herring of which the fishermen speak. It is taken 
singly, not in shoals. I suspect they mean the alosa or shad.” 
They may mean this species ; but the name of rock-herring is applied 
by some persons to the scad, or horse mackerel ( Caranx Trachurus), on the 
coast of Derry and Donegal. It is probably from some confusion about 
scad and shad that the latter has, in various places, had the name of bony 
horseman. 
The Common Cod-Fish,* Gadus Morrhua, Linn., 
Morrhua vulgaris, Cuv., 
Is common around the coast. The principal fishmonger in Belfast con- 
siders the cod-fish to be in season from November to April. The average 
weight here is, he says, from 16 to 18 lbs., but he saw one weighing 50 
lbs., and has been told of two taken on Holywood bank (Belfast Bay) 
which weighed 56 and 60 lbs. They were caught on the same day. 
All the living inhabitants of the deep that it can master would seem 
to be sacrificed to the voracity of the cod, — fishes, Crustacea, star-fishes, mol- 
lusca, worms, &c., & c., — and I have had proof that they scruple not to 
consume the young of their owrn species. 
I have ample notes of the food found in many of them ; but they are 
such indiscriminate feeders, that it seems to me useless to enumerate the 
species sacrificed by them. The stomachs of some which I examined 
were nearly filled with Hermit crabs, all of which had been dragged from 
the shells they inhabited, as these latter were not in the stomach ; in one 
instance a large shell of the Fusus despectus did occur to me in a cod. 
Mr. Sinclaire has frequently, at Ballantrae, seen fine full-grown herrings 
taken from cod-fish : when uninjured for food, they are very wisely used 
by the people there for that purpose, the children especially attending the 
cutting up of the cod-fish, that they might get the herrings contained in 
them to carry off to their homes. 
Rock-cod is a mere variety of the common species, inhabiting rocky 
localities (as the name rock-cod denotes), and of a reddish brown colour ; 
a fact of which I have myself had evidence on different parts of the coast 
of the Brit. Islands. Pennant remarks, in note to p. 239, “ Codlings 
are often taken of a yellow, orange, and even red colour, while they re- 
main among the rocks, but on changing their place assume the colour of 
other cod-fish.” 
The rock-cod is considered good at all seasons, owing perhaps to its 
preying more on Crustacea than the cod frequenting different feeding- 
grounds. 
I have found specimens of the common cod, agreeing so with the de- 
scription of Gadus punctatus, Turt., as to satisfy me that this is not dis- 
tinct from it. 
March 3, 1840. I obtained from Belfast Bay a singularly malformed 
cod, similar to that figured by Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 229. Its length was 22 
inches, colour as usual in the common cod. A month afterwards, I saw 
* Commonly known by the name of cod : the young are called codling. A 
fisherman at Portaferry remarked to me that it there bore three names, viz. cod- 
ling when young, buddagh when middle-sized, and cod-fish when adult. 
