The common cod (_Morrhua vulgaris_) is, as the name implies, one of our best-known fishes, and it was at one time very plentiful and cheap. It is found in the deep waters of all our northern seas, but has never been known in the Mediterranean. It has been largely captured on the coasts of Scotland, and, as is elsewhere mentioned, it occurs in profusion on the shores of Newfoundland, where its plentifulness led to a great fishery being established. The cod is extremely voracious, and eats up most greedily the smaller inhabitants of the seas; it grows to a large size, and is very prolific in the perpetuation of its kind. A cod-roe has more than once been found to be half the gross weight of the fish, and specimens of the female have been caught with upwards of eight millions of eggs; but of course it cannot be expected that in the great waste of waters all the ova will be fertilised, or that any but a small percentage of the fish will ever arrive at maturity. This fish spawns in mid-winter, but there are no very reliable data to show when it becomes reproductive. My own opinion has already been expressed that the cod is an animal of slow growth, and I would venture to say that it is at least three years old before it is endowed with any breeding power. I may call attention here to one of the causes that must tend to render the fish scarce. As if the natural enemies of the young fish were not sufficient to aid in its extirpation, and the loss of the ova from causes over which man has no control not enough in the way of destruction, there is a commerce in cod-roe, and enormous quantities of it, as I have mentioned in the preceding chapter, are used in France as ground-bait for the sardine fishery! The roe of this fish is also frequently made use of at table; a cod-roe of from two to four pounds in weight can unfortunately be bought for a mere trifle, but it ought to cost a good few pounds instead of a few pence. I have elsewhere stated that the quantity of eggs yielded by a female cod is more than three millions: supposing only a third of them to come to life—that is one million—and that a tenth part of that number, viz. one hundred thousand, becomes in some shape—that is, either as codling or cod—fit for table uses, what should be the value of the cod-roe that is carelessly consumed at table? If each fish be taken as of the value of sixpence, the amount would be £2500. But supposing that only twenty full-grown codfish resulted from the three millions of eggs; these, at two and sixpence each, would represent the sum of fifty shillings as the possible produce of one dish, which, in the shape of cod-roe, cost only about as many farthings!