The chief fisheries now, are in the Bay of Canada, on the great bank of Newfoundland, and off the isle of St. Peter, and the isle of Sable. The vessels frequenting these fisheries, are from a hundred to two hundred tons burthen, and will catch 30,000 Cod or upwards each. The hook and line are the only implements employed in the taking of these fish; and this, in a depth of water of from sixteen to sixty fathoms.--The great bank of Newfoundland, is represented to be like a vast mountain, above five hundred miles long, and nearly three hundred broad; and the number of British seamen employed upon it, is supposed to be about fifteen thousand.

The best season for fishing, is from the beginning of February to the end of April and though each fisherman takes no more than one fish at a time, an expert hand will sometimes catch four hundred in a day. The employment is excessively fatiguing, from the weight of the fish, and the great coldness of the climate.

As soon as the Cod are caught, the heads are cut off; they are opened, gutted, and salted: they are then stowed in the hold of the vessel, in beds five or six yards square, head to tail, with a layer of salt to each layer of fish. When they have lain here three or four days, to drain off the water, they are shifted into a different part of the vessel, and again salted. Here they remain till the vessel is loaded. Sometimes they

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are cut into thick pieces, and packed in barrels, for the greater convenience of carriage.

Cod are taken by the natives of Norway, off their own coast, in strong packthread nets. These have meshes four inches square, and are about a fathom or fifteen meshes deep, and twenty fathoms long. They use, according to the weather, from eighteen to twenty-four of these nets joined, so that they have sometimes upwards of four hundred lathoms of net out at a time. They fish in from fifty to seventy fathom water, and mark the places of the nets.by means of buoys. The afternoon is the time when the nets are generally set; and, on taking them in on the following morning, it is no uncommon thing to obtain three or four hundred fine Cod.

In the Newfoundland fishery, the sounds, or air-bladders, are taken out, washed from their slime, and salted for exportation. The tongues are also cured, and brought in barrels, containing four or five hundred pounds weight each. From the livers a great quantity of oil is extracted.

In Lapland, and some of the districts of Norway, the Cod, which are taken in the winter, are carefully piled up, as they are caught, in buildings constructed for the purpose, having their sides open, and exposed to the air. Here they remain frozen until the following spring, when, the weather becoming mild, they are removed to another building of the like construction, in

which they are prepared for drying. The heads are cut off, the entrails taken out, and the remainder of the body is hung up in the air. Fish caught in the spring, are immediately conveyed to the second house, and dried in the above manner. Those that are caught during the summer season, on account of the heat of the weather, can only be preserved by the common methods of curing with salt.

These fish feed principally on the smaller species of the scaly tribes, on worms, shell-fish, and crabs; and their digestion is sufficiently powerful to dissolve the greatest part even of the shells which they swallow.

They are so extremely prolific, Leeuwenhock counted above three millions of eggs in the roe of a middling-sized Cod-fish. The production of so great a number will surely baffle all the efforts of man, or the voracity of the inhabitants of the ocean, to thin the species so greatly, as to prevent its affording an inexhaustible supply of grateful provision in all ages.

In the European seas, the Cod begin to spawn in January, and they deposit their eggs in rough ground among rocks. Some continue in roe until the beginning of April. They recover very quickly after spawning, and good fish are to be taken all the summer. When they are out of season, they are thin-tailed and lousy. Cod-fish are chosen for the table, by their plumpness, and roundness near the tail; by the depth of the

hollow behind the head, and by the regular undulated appearance of the sides, as if they were ribbed.

Cod frequently grow to a very great size. The largest that is known to have been taken in the kingdom, was at Scarborough, in the year 1775: it measured five feet eight inches in length, and five feet in circumference, and weighed seventy-eight pounds. The usual weight of the fish is from fourteen to forty pounds.

OF THE MIGRATION OF FISHES.

THOUGH there are some tribes that live only in the sea, and others only in fresh water, yet there are some whose organs are equally adapted to either element, and that spend a part of their season in one, and a part in the other. Thus, the salmon, the shad, the smelt, and the flounder, annually quit their native ocean, and come up our rivers to deposit their spawn. This seems the most important business of their lives; and there is no danger that they will not encounter, even to the surmounting precipices, to find a proper place for casting their spawn. The salmon, upon these occasions, is seen to ascend rivers five hundred miles from the sea; and to brave not only the danger of various enemies, but also

to spring up cataracts as high as a house. As soon as they come to the bottom of the torrent, they seem disappointed to meet the obstruction, and swim some paces back: they then take a view of the danger that lies before them, survey it motionless for some minutes, advance, and again retreat; till, at, last summoning up all their force, they take a leap from the bottom, their body straight, and strongly in motion; and thus most frequently clear every obstruction. It sometimes happens, however, that they want strength to make the leap; and then, in our fisheries, they are taken in their descent. But this is one of the smallest dangers that attend these adventuring animals in their progress: numberless are the methods of taking them; as well by the hook, as by nets, baskets, and other inventions, which it is not our business here to describe. Their capture makes, in several countries, particularly in Ireland, a great article of commerce; and being cured in several different manners, either by salting, pickling, or drying, they are sent to all the markets of Europe.

As these mount up the rivers to deposit their spawn, others, particularly eel, descend the fresh water streams, to bring forth their young in the sea. About the month of August, annually, these animals take the opportunity of the most obscure nights, and when the rivers are flooded by accidental rains, seek the ocean. When they have reached the sea, and produced