Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Haddock Sea Fish
With an approach to the same form and organization with the Cod, the Haddock comes near to it also in its habits, but although equally dispersed over the world, it is for the most part in less numbers. It is observable also that this fish is disposed to observe a partial and limited migration or change of quarters, with a somewhat loose arrangement of the multi- tudes that observe it.
Such is the case in a remarkable degree on the coast of Scotland, and also on a portion of the coast of Yorkshire, where there is a bank which extends for about eighty miles, but in breadth scarcely exceeding three, where in the winter they are caught in large numbers, but on either side of these limits at the same time none are taken.
It is also found in abundance in America, on the borders of Massachusetts, but it so little affects the society of the Cod, that on the banks oi Newfoundland, when a fisherman succeeded in taking upwards of five hundred and fifty Cods in one day, he took no more than two Haddocks at the same time.
In their periodical assemblings at their favourite stations on our coasts they appear to be influenced by a common feeling, which may be of the same nature as that which prompt them finally to the development and shedding of the spawn, the season of which, as is generally the case with the fishes of this family, is in the colder months of the year, and after continuing in numbers for about two months, during which they have yielded to the fisherman an abundant harvest, they go away into deeper water or a colder zone, and although single examples may be caught at any time, the greater number does not show itself again until the return of another season.
The Haddock is in sufficient estimation for the table as to meet with a ready sale, but neither in numbers nor as food is it equal to the Cod, whether fresh or salted, and as regards the last particular, there is much difference of opinion whether it deserves the credit in which it stands, but this difference may in a great degree depend on the nature of the district in which the fish was caught, as well as in the sort of preparation to which it has been subjected.
It is admitted however, that the older and larger examples are inferior to such as are of moderate size. It is chiefly in Scotland that the salted Haddock is of sufficient importance to be the subject of trade, and a few of the towns in that portion of the United Kingdom have obtained some degree of celebrity from the manner in which these preserved fish have been prepared.
Such is the case with Findhorn, which has secured a reputation on this account, which is more than shared by some other places in its neighbourhood, although less generally known. The prin cipal portion of the secret in the preparation of this esteemed dish is said to consist in smoking the fish over a peat fire after it has been for a short time moderately salted.
The Haddock feeds near or from the ground, and uses little discrimination in the choice and yet, while it rejects nothing which the Cod might swallow there seems to be that difference of appetite between these fishes, that the stomach of the Haddock will best repay the examination of the naturalist whose interest is in the collection of shells, of which he will thus secure some species that otherwise he might not readily meet with. In a single stomach, among a multitude of uni valve and bivalve shells, I was able to select no less than twelve separate species.
There are at times some unknown influences in the ocean which have caused great destruction among the multitudes of these fish, so that huge numbers have been found dead and floating on the surface of the water. An instance of this sort is recorded in the parliamentary inquiry into the state of the Salmon fisheries in the year 1825, from which it appears that about thirty years before that date so great was the havoc among these fishes, that ships had sailed through many leagues of the North Sea where the surface was covered with dead Haddocks, and after this for several years it was a rare fish in these districts. It was seen also that even when again they had become plentiful it was long before these fishes had reached to their former size.
It is not often that the Haddock attains the length of two feet, or exceeds the weight of eight or ten pounds, but Mr. Thompson mentions instances of examples taken in Ireland which were of eighteen, twenty, and twenty five pounds, and when this gentleman adds that these fishes in Ireland are often valued more highly than the Cod, and obtain a price which we should deem enormous, we are driven to the con clusion that these Irish Haddocks are more richly fed, and in finer condition than in most parts of England. The higher price cannot proceed from a scarcity of the fish, for it is said that in Dublin Bay and along the neighbouring coast they are in great plenty.
The head is compressed, level on the top, with a ridge, which is directed backward. Snout projecting, nostrils half way to the eye, which is large, elevated, and behind the corner of the mouth, the jaws are nearly equal, but the upper jaw is within the projecting snout, teeth in both, and in the palate a barb at the lower jaw. The body compressed, rising from the head to the first dorsal fin, more slender towards the tail. Vent about midway between the snout and root of the tail.
Lateral line nearly straight, conspicuous from its dark colour, scales on the body slightly visible. Dorsal fins three, the first elevated, triangular, ending in a point, second and third less elevated, extending to near the tail. Anal fins two, the hrst forming the segment of a circle. Pectorals slightly pointed, ventrals with the first ray lengthened, tail more or less concave. The colour of the back and fins dusky purplish brown, paler on the sides, dull yellow or white below, a large dark spot on the
side, which is lighter in the middle, stretches down from the lateral line. The Haddock of which a figure is given in Fries and Eckstrom's "Skandinavian Fishes," is so unlike the British species as to raise the suspicion that they may be specifically different, and the same may be said of the Pollack. Naturalists of former days were persuaded that the names Ones, in Greek, and Asinus, (the ass,) were the proper desig- nations of this fish in ancient times, and when we examine the colour it usually bears, coupled with the distinguishing stripe at the shoulders, we scarcely feel surprised that the excellent naturalist.
Turner, in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and the still more eminent Ray, should countenance this opinion. But it happens unfortunately for this idea that the Haddock is not found in the Mediterranean, and therefore could not have fallen under the observation of the Greeks, from whom the appellation was borrowed by the Romans, as applied to a species with which both these people were acquainted.
To a kindred fish therefore this name must have been first applied, and in the. Hake we shall find sufficient likeness of colour to the terrestrial animal, to warrant the comparison by a people of whom we are constantly reminded that with them a distant resemblance was sufficient to constitute a likeness that would authorize a name, but whether this Hake of the Mediterranean is the same with that known among ourselves remains yet to be determined.
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