[254] The name _bacallaos_, or _baccallaos_, is evidently derived from the Greek word βάκὴλος, a large, lusty fellow. Names similar to this appellation were used by the Greeks as early as the third century of the Christian era. Athenæus, in his work entitled Δειπνοσοφισταί (the learned men at supper), presents this information respecting certain fish: “They say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found following at the tail of the other; and, therefore, from the fact of one following close on the tail of the other, some ancients call men who are intemperate and libidinous by the same name.... Euthydemus, in his work on Cured Fish, says: ‘Some call this fish [the cod] the _bacchus_, and some the _gelaria_, and some the hake.’”—The Deipnosophists or banquet of the learned of Athenæus. Literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London, 1854. vol. ii. pp. 442, 496. Great numbers of the common cod [_morrhua vulgaris_] are annually caught on the fishing-banks off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. This fish is very prolific. It is said that eight millions of eggs have been counted in the roe of a female cod. Cod are sometimes caught that weigh ninety pounds. [255] De Orbe Novo decades. dec. iii. cap. vi. [256] The birthplace of Sebastian Caboto’s is not definitely known. Richard Eden, in his translation of the Decades of the New World of Peter Martyr, says that Sebastiano Caboto told him that he was born at Bristol, England; and Gasparo Contarini, the embassador of Charles V., avers that he informed him that Venice was his birthplace. It is conjectured that he was born about the year 1476. On the twentieth of October, 1512, Sebastiano Caboto was appointed a sea-captain by King Ferdinand of Spain. In the service of Charles V., he sailed on the fifth of April, 1526, to search for a navigable strait along the coast of South America. On this voyage, in 1527, he explored the Rio de la Plata. In July, 1530, he returned to Spain. In 1548 he went to England, where he died some time after the year 1557.—_Vide_ The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India. Translated into Englysshe by Richarde Eden. Londoni, 1555. f. 255. Dispatch of Contarini from Valladolid, December 31, 1522. MS. Marciana library, Venice. cod. 1019. cart. 281-283. Jean et Sébastien Cabot. Harrisse. pp. 109-133. [257] Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias con todo el descubrimiento y cosas notables que han acaecido dende que se ganaron ata et año de 1551. [Por Francisco Lopez de Gomara.] Çaragoça, 1552. primera parte. cap. de los Bacallaos.