2 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
INTRODUCTION 
The cod is one of the most valuable and best known of all fishes. In the western 
Atlantic it has been caught from as far north as latitude 67° on the west coast of 
Greenland (Jensen, 1926, p. 89) to as far south as Cape Hatteras, N. C., and in 
European waters from Spitzbergen to the region just southwest of Great Britain. 
A few stragglers enter the Bay of Biscay. Along our coast the most southerly ground 
where cod are to be found in commercial numbers the year round is off southern 
Massachusetts, and it is only from November to May when, by migrating, they 
invade the region extending from Rhode Island to North Carolina. No commer- 
cial fishing for cod has been carried on south of Delaware. 
The cod has been of great economic importance to North America from the 
time of the earliest white settlers to the present era. Sette (1927, p. 3) points out 
that its fishery is probably the most international of any off North America, as 
no less than five nations take part in it. 
During the 30-year period from 1896 to 1925 the annual catch of cod off the 
east coast of North America has ranged from 872,000,000 to 1,339,000,000 pounds, 
with an average of 1,103,000,000. Although subject to fluctuations, the general 
productivity of the cod fishery neither increased nor decreased during this time. 
The catch for the past 30 years has been divided among the five nations con- 
cerned, as follows: Newfoundland, 49 per cent; Canada, 20 per cent; France, 17 per 
cent; United States, 12 per cent; and Portugal, 2 per cent. (Sette, 1927, p. 13.) In 
the eastern Atlantic the annual catch of cod amounts to about a billion pounds. 
The cod held first rank in the New England vessel fisheries for many years, 
but recently with the increasing number of otter trawlers and the improved methods 
of preparing and marketing fillets, the haddock has assumed first place. The landings 
of cod at Boston, Gloucester, and Portland, expressed in terms of fresh fish, amounted 
to 67,098,688 pounds, valued at $2,184,141, during 1923; 1 64,241,619 pounds, 
valued at $2,138,306, during 1924 ; 2 82,586,677 pounds, valued at $2,644,582, in 
1926; 3 and 65,342,013 pounds, valued at $2,146,503, in 1927. 4 
Europeans as well as Americans have studied its spawning habits, and each 
year millions of young cod are artificially hatched and liberated. The cod’s pref- 
erence for certain foods has become known by investigators, who have examined 
thousands of stomachs. Statistics have been compiled from year to year on the 
amounts of cod and other fish landed at the important markets along the Atlantic 
coast and the amounts taken on each of the important fishing banks. Yet, in spite 
of all the study that has been devoted to the cod, there are still serious gaps in our 
knowledge of its life history. 
That bodies of cod move from place to place has long been known by fishermen. 
We are reasonably certain that they carry out breeding migrations, for large schools 
of fish are found in certain localities only during the spawning period. It is prob- 
able, too, that bodies of fish move about in search of good feeding grounds, and that 
they make some effort to avoid extremes of temperature which are unfavorable to 
them. In general, the smaller fish are the more stationary while the larger are the 
more migratory. Besides the schools of fish which appear to travel en masse, some 
individuals, usually the larger fish, seem to lead a nomadic existence. But even 
these may not migrate far in any given direction if we take tagged fish as a criterion. 
1 Fishery Industries of the United States for 1923, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 
> Ibid, for 1924. 
» Ibid, for 1926. 
* Ibid, for 1927. 
