Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/265

Rh The fishery for Cod on the banks and shores of Newfoundland and Labrador is the most important in the world, for the number of men and the amount of capital that it employs. It is estimated that twenty thousand British subjects are directly engaged in the fishery, and probably thrice as many are more or less directly supported by it. The annual produce of their efforts may be roundly stated at 600,000 hundred weights of dried fish, and 3000 tuns of cod-liver oil; the whole worth, at the place of shipment, 450,000l. sterling. It has been supposed that more than six thousand vessels are engaged in the Cod fishery on both sides of the Atlantic; and that thirty-six millions of these fishes are captured, salted and dried, to be then distributed over the various regions of the globe. "We have eaten them," says Mr. Swainson, "under the name of Stock-fish, in all parts of the Mediterranean, brought by our English vessels; and they are to be had in all parts of the Brazilian Empire,—being carried on the backs of mules from the sea-coast into those provinces of the interior, where fresh fish cannot easily be procured." We believe, however, that the term Stock-fish distinctively applies to the Cod dried whole, or gutted only, without salt, as the Norwegians treat their fish; the British split it, take out the backbone, salt it, and dry it flat. To Brazil and the West Indian Isles, Cod fish is sent in casks, pressed in by a screw; to the Mediterranean and home market it is shipped in bulk.

The Cod is a deep-water fish, rarely coming into the shallows; he is a voracious and almost promiscuous feeder. Unlike the Herring or Mackerel, it can scarcely be called gregarious;