Anacanxus. FISHES. Gadoids. 1 
bladder is large, is often indented, and contains a 
vaso-ganglion, but like the air-bladders of the rest of 
the order, it has no pneumatic tube. The stomach is 
capacious, with a sac-like projection below the pylorus, 
and the pancreatic coeca are numerous. 
The genera are — Gadus; Gadiculus (Guichenot); Merlangus; 
.Iferluccias I Lota; Motella; Brosmius ; Brotuia; A teleopus 
(Schlegel); Phyds ; Raniceps; Bythites (Reinhardt); Homa- 
/o 2 ^ci? 72 ?(s (Girard) ; Xenocephalus ; and Uraleptus. 
The Cod-fish {Morrliua callarias) anciently called 
Keeling, is an inhabitant of both sides of the North 
sea from Greenland, Iceland, and the North Cape, 
down to the 35th parallel of latitude. It inhabits 
considerable depths, varying from fifteen to eighty 
fathoms, beyond which, fishing by the line becomes 
so laborious as to be practically useless, but between 
thirty and sixty fathoms on certain banks it is most 
productive. The great haunts of the fish are the 
Dogger Bank, certain banks lying off Ireland and 
the Hebrides, Fiskar Bank off Loffoden on the Norway 
coast, the Great Bank of Newfoundland, the Green 
Bank, and others on the Atlantic coasts of British 
America. Very recently a most productive fishery 
has been discovered round Rockhall, an islet lying off 
the west coast of Scotland. 
When they deposit their spawn, the Cod are said 
to emerge from the greater depths to banks rising 
nearer to the surface, and the young fish remain in 
the shallower water during the earlier stages of their 
growth. The Cod fishery has doubtless been pro- 
secuted in the North seas from the earliest times, 
and must indeed have been coeval with the launching 
of a sea-going boat. The Scandinavian Ohther in 
his conversation with King Alfred about the year 
890, ineidentally mentions the residence of Finnic 
fishermen on the coasts of Norway beyond the limits 
of the then existing settlements of the Northmen, and 
the Icelandic annals of the colonization of Greenland 
and of the discovery of America in the tenth century 
speak of the summer fisheries as yielding a supply of 
food to the settlers. The Cod fishery of Western 
Greenland is at the present day one of the chief stays 
of the inhabitants. The importance of the Cod fishery 
was recognized by England very early, but the Statute 
of Herrings made in 1360 in the reign of Edward III. 
is the first act of Parliament in which there is a special 
reference to this fish, contained in a clause giving 
power to regulate the buying and selling of Stock -Jish 
of St. Botulf. Another statute made in the same 
year ordains that the price of Dogger-fish shall be 
assessed at the beginning of the fair, and that no 
Loych-fish be chosen, only in three parts, that is to 
say. Lob, Ling, and Cod. Instructions are also given 
with respect to Orgeys, “ that is to say, fish greater 
than Lob.” Only masters of ships and fishermen by 
profession were allowed to buy hooks and nets in 
Norfolk ; and doggers and landships pertaining to 
Blakeney * were to discharge their fish in that port 
* Blakeney is still a fishing village, but of much less note 
than formerly, having ceased to be the resort of German 
merchants. John de Baconthorpe, whose metaphysical learn- 
ing made him the wonder of his age, was educated in the 
Carmelite monastery of Blakeney, and died in London in 
1346. 
VoL. II. 71 
only, or on the adjoining coasts of Suytor, Wyneton, 
Clay, Salthouse, Shiringham, and Crowmer. In the 
reigns of later kings, the statutes regulating the sea- 
fisheries are numerous. 
Previous to the discovery of Newfoundland, the 
British Cod fisheries were established chiefly on the 
Dogger Bank, oft' the Hebrides, and in the seas of 
Iceland. The Danes complained to Henry VI. of the 
irregularities committed by English fishermen at Ice- 
land, and in the reign of Edward IV. the English were 
excluded by treaty from the fishery there. In the 
twenty-fifth year of Henry VHI. it was ordained that 
only merchant adventurers to Iceland for Salt-fish, 
Stock-fish, Ling, Haberdine, or Lob-fish, or doggermen 
or fishermen by profession, shall buy of these fish for 
sale again at the fairs of Sturbridge, St. Ives, or Ely ; 
and in the third year of Edward VI. the admiral of 
England was forbidden to tax merchants and fisher- 
men adventuring and journeying to Iceland, New- 
foundland, or Ireland, for the getting of fish, under 
pain of treble forfeiture. 
The Cod fishery is carried on solely by lines and 
hooks ; one very long kind of line called hiilter, which 
is used chiefly on the Cornish coast, is furnished with 
hooks attached at regular distances by snoods, and 
baited with Sand-launces or Molluscs. This line, 
when properly armed, is laid across the run of the 
tide during slack water, and is anchored and buoyed. 
The other kind is the hand line, depending from the 
side of the vessel, so that the baited hook is kept about 
a yard from the bottom, and two of these lines are 
managed by each man. Much of the fish caught on 
the British coasts is brought alive into the Thames; 
and Yarrell states that a few years ago two hundred 
and fifty well-boats engaged in supplying the London 
market with Cod and Flat-fish, were manned by two 
thousand fishermen, whose earnings needed to be 
£140,000 before the capitalists who furnished the 
boats and fishing gear received any dividend. 
In the year 1854 the numbers of fish of the Cod and 
Ling {Lota molva) kind taken in the Scottish fisheries 
were three millions and a half, of which less than a 
moiety were caught off the Shetland islands. The 
weight of wholesome food thus extracted from the sea, 
amounted to about five thousand five hundred tons ; 
and so far from having any sensible effect on the 
productiveness of the fishing banks, one pair of fish, 
supposing all the eggs of the female to come to matu- 
rity, would supply the annual waste thrice over, for 
the number of eggs in a moderate sized Cod-fish has 
been calculated at nine millions.* 
Cod are cured in the Orkneys and Hebrides in the 
manner described as follows by James Wilson : — The 
fish are generally gutted before they are brought ashore. 
As soon as they are landed, the splitter with a large 
knife lays them open from head to tail, and extracts 
the upper half of the back-bone. He then hands them 
over to the loasher, who, with a brush and sea-water, 
cleanses them from every particle of blood. When 
all the fish are split, washed, and allowed to drain, they 
* Leuvvenhoek reckoned nine million three hundred and 
eighty-four thousand eggs in a cod-fish of middling size. — 
[Penn. Zool.) 
