Note 254 — Chapter VI · 1496-1498.

The name bacallaos, or baccallaos, is evidently derived from the Greek word βάκὴλος, a large, lusty fellow. Names similar to this appellation were used by the Greeks as early as the third century of the Christian era. Athenæus, in his work entitled Δειπνοσοφισταί (the learned men at supper), presents this information respecting certain fish: “They say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found following at the tail of the other; and, therefore, from the fact of one following close on the tail of the other, some ancients call men who are intemperate and libidinous by the same name.... Euthydemus, in his work on Cured Fish, says: ‘Some call this fish [the cod] the bacchus, and some the gelaria, and some the hake.’”—The Deipnosophists or banquet of the learned of Athenæus. Literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London, 1854. vol. ii. pp. 442, 496.

Great numbers of the common cod [morrhua vulgaris] are annually caught on the fishing-banks off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. This fish is very prolific. It is said that eight millions of eggs have been counted in the roe of a female cod. Cod are sometimes caught that weigh ninety pounds.