09 
MERLUClUS. 
_ Twe generic cliaracter is, that there are two dorsal fins cad y 
single anal fin; but tlsere is no barb at tlic tliiu. 
HAKE. 
Aselhi.s she. morluclus, 
It - i< (( 
Gadus merlucius, 
ii « 
Merbichis vulgaris, 
Gade merlus, 
Marlucius vulgaris, 
If ft 
JoESTON; Table 1, f. 3, 
'VVlLLOTJGHBY: p, 1 7 k 
LinNjEus; but be speaks of it as baying a 
barb. 
Bloch; pi. 161. Donovan; pi. 28. 
Fleming; British Animals, p. 193. 
Lacepkdb. 
Jenyns; Maminl, p. 447. 
Yaurell; British Fishes, vol. ii, p. 268. 
Gukiiiek; Oat. Br. Museum, vol. iv. 
The Hake is one of our commonest fishes round the coasts 
of the British Islands, but it abounds in the greatest numbers 
in the south and west of England and Ireland. Bellamy, in 
his account of the fishes met with in the south of Devonshire, 
says that sixty thousand were brought by trawlers into Plymouth 
in the months of December and Jamiitry; and I have been 
informed that forty thousand were landed in Mount’s Bay in 
one day; and on another occasion eleven hundred were taken 
by one boat in two nights, — the evening or night being the 
most successful time of fishing for them. These large assemblies 
however are not appropriate to the usual habits of this fish, 
and their gathering together no more proceeds from a love 
of union than does that of a cry of wolves when hunting 
their prey. 'J hey Yvatch the movements of smaller fishes, and 
devour voraciously the pilchards and herrings which throng 
the coasts, in feeding on which it is only when gorged to 
