Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/270

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256
MALACOPTERYGII.—GADIDÆ

eagerness to get to the place where they are usually fed, just as barn-door fowls do at the sight of the person who feeds them. We came provided with a quantity of mussels, scalded, for the purpose of getting them more easily from the shell, a kind of food on which the Cod and other fish in the pond thrive amazingly; and I was informed that after having been thus stall-fed,—if I may so term it,—for a few weeks, they greatly exceed in flavour and juiciness their untamed brethren of the open sea. I held a mussel between my fingers, about two inches below the surface of the water, and immediately a Cod of about ten pounds weight took it, winning the prize by a head from three or four more of similar dimensions, all of which rushed towards my hand at the same time. It required all the nerve I could muster to prevent me from jerking back my hand at the moment the Cod, with widely extended jaws, took the bait. I made several attempts to get hold of one of them, but they all slipped from my grasp, except one small Cod of about four or five pounds weight, which I succeeded in making a prisoner. Having raised him out of the water and examined him at my leisure, I returned him to his native element, at which he seemed as much pleased as I should have been in regaining terra-firma after an involuntary immersion. There was one large Cod of about ten pounds weight that I made several attempts to get hold of without success, as from his great size and strength he always escaped, and as he could not throw dust in my eyes, he revenged himself by darting off with a whisk of his tail that sent the water flying over me. After taking a short run, he always returned