“Where are the haddocks?” I once asked a Newhaven fisherman. “They are about all eaten up, sir,” was his very innocent reply; and I believe this to be true. The shore races of that fish have long disappeared, and our fishermen have now to seek this most palatable inhabitant of the sea afar off in the deep waters. Vast numbers of the haddock used to be taken in the Firth of Forth, but during late years they have become very scarce, and the boats now require to go a night’s voyage to seek for them. If we knew the minutiæ of the life of this fish, we should be better able to regulate the season for its capture, and the percentage that we might with safety take from the water without deteriorating the breeding power of the animal. There are some touches of romance even about the haddock, but I need not further allude to these in this division of my book, as I shall have to refer to it again under the head of the “White Fish Fisheries.” It is, like all fish, wonderfully prolific, and is looked upon by the fishermen as being also a migratory fish, as are also the turbot and many other sea animals. The family to which the haddock belongs embraces many of our best food fish, as whiting, cod, ling, etc.; but of the growth and habits of the members of this family we are as ignorant as we are of the natural history of the whitebait or sprat. I have the authority of a rather learned Buckie fisherman (recently drowned, poor fellow! in the great storm on the Moray Frith) for stating that codfish do not grow at a greater rate than from eight to twelve ounces per annum. This fisherman had seen a cod that had got enclosed by some accident in a large rock pool, and so had obtained for a few weeks the advantage of studying its powers of digestion, which he found to be particularly slow, although there was abundant food. The haddock, which is a far more active fish, my informant considered to grow at a more rapid rate. On asking this man about the food of fishes, he said he was of opinion that they preyed extensively upon each other, but that, so far as his opportunities of observation went, they did not as a matter of course live upon each other’s spawn; in other words, he did not think that the enormous quantities of roe and milt given to fish were provided, as has been supposed by one or two writers on the subject, for any other purpose than the keeping up of the species. The spawn of all kinds of fish is extensively wasted by other means; and these animals have no doubt a thousand ways of obtaining food that are yet unknown to man; indeed, the very element in which they live is in a sense a great mass of living matter, and it doubtless affords by means of minute animals a wonderful source of supply. Fish, too, are less dainty in their food than is generally supposed, and some kinds eat garbage of the most revolting description with great avidity.