The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-01-03
The Cod.

Besides being the most prolific of
food fishes, he is large, easily taken and
quickly prepared for market, while his
different parts are utilized as generally
as those of his land rival, the hog. Pro-
fessor Beard says that besides the mus
cular parts, the sounds and roes are
used as food, the oil is valuable for
medical and mechanical purposes, the
offal is converted into a valuable
manure, the bones make good fuel,
while the skins serve many nations for
leather and clothing. This fish, like
the more prominent of his relatives, is
at home only in cold water, the latitude
of Cape May being his extreme south
ern boundary, while he lives as close to
the pole as he can without risk of being
frozen in. He probably exists farther
south than the line indicated above,
but if so, it is in cool depths too retired
to admit of successful interviewing. At
certain points off the Massachusetts
coast he finds sufficiently low tenn
perature in shallow water, and at these
places he is frequently seen and caught
of fishermen, but his favorite American
haunts are the semi-inclosed waters of
the coast of Canada and adjacent
islands. Fond, however, as he is of
very cold water, there are temperatures
which he will under no circumstances
endure, even though they be but two or
three degrees removed from the nor
NAL. Among these is the water that
comes from melting salt ice, and slow
ly sinks to the level to which its specific
fxyn = L
cod will not remain; he will not go
through it, even though his dinner be
on the opposite side, the distance very
short and the cod very hungry. He
prefers to circumnavigate such an in
hospitable region if he has business on
the other side, as fishermen have
learned to their own exceeding profit.
There are different varieties of the
cod, and the entire lack of evidence of
mixed blood, and the rarity with which
more than one variety is found in any
given locality, prove either that the
cod is a non-migratory fish, or that he
regards the preservation of cast as a
paramount duty. Like aristocrats
everywhere, he is an omnivorous feed
er. The "dredge'' is considered by
naturalists to be the best implement
with which to obtain information upon
deep-sea life; but Professor Baird saws
that the stomach of the cod is the best
of all dredges, for it generally contains
morsels of every sort of marine resident
within reach. With high-born con-
tempt of the requirements of trade, the
cod feeds largely upon herring and
mackerel, but he is partial to crabs, lob
sters, and most other shell-fish. AS his
digestion is not equal to the task of as
similating these last-named items of
the ocean menu, he slows them away in
the side of his stomach, and when the
quantity becomes burdensome, he dis
poses of them according to the method
to which Jonah owed his escape from
submarine lodgings. While not mi
gratory by inclination, any failure or
deterioration OF his habitual larder will
cause him to remove to the nearest re-
sort of good livers. Years ago Goldfish
were quite plentiful off Newburyport,
Massachusetts, but disappeared as the
Merrimac River was depleted of fish;
since the restocking of the river, how
ever, with shad and alewives, the cod
has reappeared at his old dining place,
gladdening the hearts of the fishermen,
and grazing the Sunday breakfast table
of the descendants of the Puritans.
The cod resorts to the shore for feed
ing purposes; but who that is not cook
or scullion cares always to be in the
vicinity of the dining-room? Naturally
he is an off-shore, deep-water fish, for
at distance from the land he is always
sure of finding those strata of cold
water in which he delights. There
are times when he will not leave
these, even for food; but the sea-
sons in which fresh-water fish
revisit the scenes of their childhood are
also the seasons when the water is cool
inshore. While hot weather remains,
with sea-water warm enough to lure
human beings into the surf, the cod
abhors the beach, and takes what food
is nearest at hand, preferrine, like sum-
mer dodgers elsewhere, to endure the
plainest fare for the sake of cool quar-
tiers. When, however, the temperature
of the water allows him to follow the
4 CT