341 
Cod-fishing . 
Muffett calls the Cod a great sea-whiting. This fish 
was called, at different stages of its growth, a 
whitling, codling, and cod. In the north of ^ 1 
Britain it was called a keeling, in the south a cod, and in 
the west a melwell. 
Mr. Daniel writes (Rural Sports, vol. ii. p. 29):— 
“ The greater fisheries of cod were on the coast of Iceland, and of our 
western isles, before the discovery of Newfoundland. That discovery 
took place by Cabot, about the year 1500; and although the English 
began settling there twenty years afterwards, the fishery did not flourish 
until 1577, when England had the least share of it. Mr. Anderson, in 
his j History of Commerce , says the French began to fish there, and;it 
is somewhere asserted, that their first pretence for fishing for cod in 
these seas, was only to supply an English convent with that article. 
Notwithstanding this intrusion, about 1625, Devonshire alone employed 
one hundred and fifty ships, and 8000 persons at Newfoundland for six 
months in the year.” 
lago's reference to this fish— 
“ She that in wisdom never was so frail 
To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail ” 
(Othello, ii. 1,155), 
has been quoted by some writers to prove that the dis¬ 
tance from which the cod was brought rendered it a deli¬ 
cacy superior even to salmon. Mr. Couch, on the con¬ 
trary, interprets the passage to mean that—- 
“ in the reign of Elizabeth, a salmon at table was accounted a matter 
of fashion, in which a person of ordinary rank might be tempted to 
ape the rich and the great.” (j British Fishes , vol. iv. p. 194.) 
He objects, however, to the incongruity of placing the 
reference in the mouth of one to whom the cod could 
scarcely have been known. The great abundance of 
salmon at this period makes it probable that the former 
view is correct. In Queen Elizabeth’s Household Booh 
for the forty-third year of her reign, we find an entry, 
“Item, the master cookes have to fee all the salmons’ 
tailes.” 
