60 
cou. 
which enter their bodies by the mouth and gills, and in a time 
surprisingly short devour the whole of the soft parts, so as to 
leave the skin almost empty. Of this last-named method of 
fishing the success must be greater than any which can arise 
from the employment of a few lines that hang from a boat 
which is manned by no more than two or three up to half a 
dozen men; but it requires a greater outlay than many fisher- 
men are able to provide, and a complaint also is sometimes 
made of the want of bait for such a multitude of hooks. IBut 
several hundreds of fishes, including the Cod and Ling, are 
thus sometimes drawn up at a single haul, and that too at 
times when boats which must ride at anchor with their lines 
are not able to encounter the roughness of the sea. 
It has been observed that the largest number of these fishes 
are often caught when the sea is becoming rough with the 
threatening of a gale from the direction of the deeper sea, yet 
a heavier storm is said to drive them away. When not sold 
fresh these fish are prepared with salt for exportation, and also 
for consumption at home; for which purpose the head and a 
portion of the backbone, with the entrails, are removed, in 
which condition they are salted and dried. In the year 1853, 
according to a report of the Board of Fisheries, the quantity 
of Cods, Ling, and Hakes cured in Scotland and the Isle of 
Man, amounted to somewhat more than five thousand nine 
hundred tons; to which are to be added upwards of three thousand 
tons which were sold fresh, the whole amounting to nine 
thousand three hundred and forty-two tons and five hundred- 
weight; hut this was the highest that had ever been known. 
Large quantities of Cods which have been thus prepared in 
Newfoundland are consumed in England. On a copper coin 
struck in or for the hlagdalen Islands, in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, with a seal on the obverse, the reverse bears a 
Cod split and prepared in the manner we have described. 
The Cod is the stoutest species of this family in proportion 
to its length. The head large, but in a fish in good condition 
the outline rises from the snout to the beginning of the dorsal 
fins. The upper jaw projects a little beyond the lower; teeth 
in both, and a plat in the form of a hors(!-shoe in front of 
the palate; a barb on the under jaw. Eye moderate. Body 
slightly compressed at first, more so behind the vent to the 
tail; vent midway between the snout and root of the caudal 
