| Name of Fish. | Weight of Fish. | No. of Eggs. | |
| lb. | oz. | ||
| Jack | 28 | 0 | 292,320 |
| ,, | 32 | 0 | 595,200 |
| ,, | 4 | 8 | 42,840 |
| Roach | 0 | 12 | 480,480 |
| Conger Eel | 28 | 0 | 15,191,040 |
| Smelt | 0 | 2 | 36,652 |
| Lump Fish | 2 | 0 | 116,640[1] |
The Codfish (Gadus morrhua) is a good example of survival through fecundity. In a specimen weighing thirty pounds, with a roe of only four pounds and a quarter, it has been calculated that there were as many as 7,000,000 eggs, and in some cases the number may be 9,000,000.[2] Here, besides other natural enemies, man again is a great destroyer. Describing the Codfishing off the coast of Labrador during the time of his visit (1833), Audubon writes:—"As there may not be less than one hundred schooners or 'pickaxes' in the harbour, three hundred boats resort to the bank each day; and, as each boat may procure two thousand Cods per diem, when Saturday night comes about six hundred thousand fishes have been brought to the harbour."[3] According to Prof. Seeley:—"The banks of Newfoundland and adjacent coasts have been fished since the year 1500. Here one man may take upwards of five hundred fish in a day, and in a year he is reckoned to capture ten thousand, though sometimes fifteen thousand may be caught in a single voyage."[4] As regards the wholesale destruction of the spawn of this fish, a single instance will suffice. In one bird colony alone on the wild coast of Norsk Finmarksen—that of Svaerholt-Klubben—are "millions upon millions" of the small Gull (Rissa tridactyla). The food of these multitudes of birds during the summer months consists for
- ↑ 'Life of Frank Buckland,' by G.C. Bompas, 2nd edit. p. 252.—"A Turbot of 8 lb. carries 300,000 eggs; a Sole of 1 lb. 130,000 eggs" (Ibid. p. 263).
- ↑ It has been suggested that the greatest loss to the succeeding generation takes place at the very earliest stage of the egg, in that a large proportion of the ripe eggs discharged in the water are not fertilized by the spermatozoa, and hence perish (Mcintosh and Masterman, 'The Life-Hist. Brit. Marine Food Fishes,' p. 236).
- ↑ 'Audubon and his Journals,' vol. ii. p. 422.
- ↑ 'Cassell's Nat. Hist.' vol. v. p. 59.
thousand have been taken from a fish of half a pound in weight" ('Royal Nat. Hist.' vol. v. p. 336).
