Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Cod Sea Fish
The Cod fish Kind
The body moderately lengthened, compressed, with numerous small and soft scales, none on the head, more than one fin on the back, all with soft rays. Teeth in the jaws and front of the palate, the tail separate from the other fins, straight or round. Ventral fins under the pectorals. Thoracic fishes.
Linngaeus classed the whole of this family in one genus, but the species have since been separated by Cuvier into several genera, according to organs which have an influence on their manner of life. It is to be regretted that the original Linnean name of Gadus has not been retained for any of these lesser divisions of the family.
With the characters of the family as above, there are three dorsal and two anal fins, a barb at the point of the lower jaw. The fishes of this family are of special importance in that they supply an abundance of wholesome and acceptable food to man, and so much the more valuable are they that they may be preserved with salt without being deprived of their good qualities, and in that condition they are conveyed to countries in which otherwise there might be a considerable deficiency.
All the species are limited to the temperate and colder regions of the ocean, with a slight exception, and of them all the Cod is the most abundant, as it is also, in an economical point of view, the most valuable, so that in pursuit of it extensive fisheries are carried on in different parts of the world.
Within the range we have specified it is very generally scattered about, at the variations of depth from ten or twenty fathoms to fifty or sixty, but there are favourite districts in which they assemble in vast multitudes, and to which they are drawn chiefly by the abundance of acceptable food, but partly also by the nature of the ground, their chosen haunts being on the elevated surface of some subaqueous mountain or plain.
Their food is sought for on the ground, as is the case generally with fishes that are furnished with a barb below the chin, which organ is not a mere appendage, but by dissection is known to be supplied with a special nerve of considerable size, by which it is rendered so sensitive that on some occasions it appears to serve as a substitute for the absence of another chief organ of perception.
I possess the note of a Cod of full growth which had swallowed a bait to be taken with a line, and which bore the appearance of being well fed, but which was altogether without eyes, and from the structure of the skin which covered the sockets there seemed no reason to suppose that it had ever enjoyed the benefit of possessing these organs.
This appendage must therefore have well performed the office of a substitute, in conformity with the observations of Sir Charles Bell, in his Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand, where he says, that by an anatomical investigation and experiment, he had discovered that the sensi bility of all the head, and of its various appendages, is derived from one nerve only of the ten which are enumerated as arising from the brain, and are distributed within and around the head, and pursuing the subject by the aid of comparative anatomy, he found that a nerve corresponding to this, which is the fifth nerve in man, served a similar purpose in all the lower animals.
In creatures which are covered with feathers or scales, or protected by shell, this nerve becomes almost the sole organ of sensibility. It is the development of this nerve that gives sensibility to the cirri which hang about the mouths of fishes. We may add that this fifth pair of nerves is represented in Monro's twenty-first plate of the Anatomy and Physiology of Fishes.
The nerves of smelling also are well marked in these fishes, and derive their origin on each side from a round ganglion which is connected with the brain by a lengthened cord. The last-named writer also represents the organ of hearing as being distinctly recognised , so that the exercise of every sense is well provided for. We shall find more to remark on this subject when we speak of the genus Motella, an aberrant form of the Gadoid family.
The Cod, thus supplied with the organs of sensation, is one of the most voracious of fishes, and on most occasions appears to feed indiscriminately. Yet there is proof that it exercises decided preference for particular objects, so that it is not only caught with some baits in greater abundance than with others, but there are animals likely to be found in its stomach, while there are others which it is in vain to look for, which still are of common occurrence in other fishes of the same family which also gather their food from the ground.
In addition to several sorts of bivalve shells, and one or two species of aphrodite, stones are found, of no small size, that have been swallowed because of the encrusting lepralia or corallines that covered them, and when the latter have been digested, the stones are probably rejected from the stomach.
In one instance six Picked Dogfishes, each nine inches in length, were found in the stomach of a Cod, and the following list of crustacean animals (crab and lobster kind,) in the stomach of these fishes, which were taken in the west portion of the British Channel, will shew the strong preference which the Cod manifests for that sort of food, of which also, we may add their digestion is so powerful and speedy, that in a short time after being swallowed, the hard and brittle crust of the crabs is made so soft by the action of the gastric juice, that their legs may be twisted round the finger.
Grabs. Stenorynclius phalanginm, Achfeus Crancliii, Inachus Dorset- tensis, I. dorynchus, I. leptochirus. Hyas coarctatus, Eurynome aspera, Xantho tuberculata, Cancer pagurus Portunus corrugatns, P. arcuatus, P. marmoreus, P. pusillus, P. 'ongipes, Gonoplax angulatus, Atelecyclua heterodoD, Corysfces cassivelaunus, Pagurus Bernhardus.
Long-tailed Crustaceans, Lobster hind. Galathsea squamifera, G. strigosa, G.-dispersa, G. Andrewsii, Munida Rondeletii, Gebia steilata, G. deltura, Nika edulis, N. Coucliii, Squilla Desmarestii, Aljobeus ruber, Scyllarua arctus.
In this enumeration the notes of Mr. W, Laughrin, A.L.S., are united with my own, and of these species the Scyllarus arctus offered only one example, which is now deposited in the British Museum, but of the Manida Hondeletii, which is usually considered as not a common species, there has been found not only numerous specimens, but these have often been of remarkable size.
The longest leg of an example described by Mr. Bell in his beautiful Natural History of this tribe measured six inches, but I have found the same part to measure nine inches, with the antennae of the same length as the leg.
We find Cods which have been rioting on this crustacean food to be in good condition for the table, but I have been informed by an intelligent man who for several years had been employed in the fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, that such was not thought to be the case in that part of the world, but that, when the fish there were found to have their stomachs filled with crabs, although the fish were numerous, large, and appeared to be well fed, it was the usual practise for the ships to change their quarters in search of others.
The Cod sheds its roe in December and January, and as the grains are increasing in size the fish is in the best con- dition for the table, but its excellence has fallen back by the time the roe is ready to be shed, and after spawning this fish becomes emaciated and worthless. Indeed there is no fish, except perhaps the Salmon, that offers so great a contrast to itself from the time of its highest perfection to the worst, which is presently after spawning, and from which it is not speedily restored.
The Cod is one of the most prolific of fishes, as may be supposed when we call to mind the vast numbers which are caught at the principal fishing stations through a long succession of years, where one man in Newfoundland has caught five hundred and fifty-two in a day, and upwards of fifteen thousand in a voyage. Ten thousand Codfishes were reckoned a proper yearly capture for a man.
The fact is well borne out by an examination of the multitude of grains of spawn which have been counted in the mass of the ovaries. In a fish which weighed twenty- one pounds, the roe weighed eleven pounds, or more than half of the whole bulk, but in another which weighed thirty pounds the roe weighed only four pounds and a quarter, and yet in this last instance the following proportion was fairly calculated.
In repeated trials, two grains in weight of this roe gave the number of over four hundred and twenty- three, so that, making a full allowance for the membrane mingled with them, the number of living individuals which might have been produced from this fish, in which the roe was of less than usual proportionate weight, was little less than seven millions.
That very many of these eggs never reach a useful size is highly probable, and yet it is to be remarked that a young Cod is more rarely found in the stomach of other fishes than the generality of its fellow natives of the deep.
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