The Mediterranean seems to be the peculiar birthplace of the Anchovy (_Engraulis encrasicholus_), where it appears in the spawning season in countless multitudes along the shallow coasts. It is about four inches long, of a bluish-brown colour on the back, and silvery-white on the belly. It is covered with large thin and easily deciduous scales, and may be readily distinguished from the Sprat and other kindred species by the anal fins being remarkably short. It is mostly caught in the neighbourhood of Antibes, Frejus, and St. Tropez, and sent pickled in enormous quantities to the fair of Beaucaire, from whence it is transported in small tin boxes to all parts of the world.
The Cod-family, to which among others, the Dorse, the Haddock, the Whiting, the Hake, the Ling, and other valuable fishes belong, ranks next to that of the herrings in importance to man. In the seas with which Europeans are best acquainted the common Cod, the chief representative of the tribe, is found universally, from Iceland to very nearly as far south as Gibraltar, but appears most abundantly on the eastern side of the American continent, and among its numerous islands, from 40° up to 66° N. lat., where it may be said to hold dominion from the outer edge of the great banks of Newfoundland, which are more than three hundred miles from land, to the verge of every creek and cove of the bounding coast. To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends forth its periodical masses of other living beings. At one season the cod is accompanied by countless myriads of the Capelin (_Salmo arcticus_), and at another by equal hosts of a molluscous animal, the Cuttle-fish (_Sepia loligo_), called in Newfoundland the squid. The three animals are migratory, and man, who stations himself on the shore for their combined destruction, conducts his movements according to their migrations, capturing millions upon millions of capelins and squids, to serve as a bait for the capture of millions of cods. In the United Kingdom alone this fish, in the catching, the curing, the partial consumption, and sale, supplies employment, food, and profit to thousands of the human race; but the banks of Newfoundland are the chief scene of its destruction. As soon as spring appears, England sends forth 2000 ships, with 30,000 men, across the Atlantic, towards those teeming shallows; France about one-half the number; and the Americans as many as both together. On an average, each ship is reckoned to catch about 40,000 fishes; and we may form some idea of the voracity, as well as of the numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred one after another with his line--no easy task considering the size of the fish, which often attains a length of from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty pounds.