The European burbot, Lota lota, is common in the streams and lakes of northern Europe and Siberia. It is a bottom fish, coarse in flesh and rather tasteless, eaten sometimes when boiled and soaked in vinegar or made into salad. It is dark olive in color, thickly marbled with blackish.
The American burbot, or lawyer (Lota maculosa), is very much like the European species. It is found from New England throughout the Great Lakes to the Yukon. It reaches a length of usually two or three feet and is little valued as food in the United States, but rises much in esteem farther north. The liver and roe are said to be delicious. In Siberia its skin is used instead of glass for windows. In Alaska, according to Dr. Dall, it reaches a length of six feet and a weight of sixty pounds.
Fig. 490.—Burbot, Lota maculosa (Le Sueur). New York.
Fig. 491.—Four-bearded Rockling, Enchelyopus cimbrius (Linnæus). Nahant, Mass.
The rocklings (Gaidropsarus and Enchelyopus) have the first dorsal composed of a band of fringes preceded by a single ray. The species are small and slender, abounding chiefly in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. The young have been called "mackerel-midges." Our commonest species is Enchelyopus cimbrius, found also in Great Britain.
The cusk, or torsk, Brosme brosme, has a single dorsal fin only. It is a large fish found on both shores of the North Atlantic, but rather rare on our coasts.
Fossil codfishes are not numerous. Fragments thought to belong to this family are found in English Eocene rocks.
Nemopteryx troscheli, from the Oligocene of Glarus, has three dorsal fins and a lunate caudal fin. Other forms have been referred with more or less doubt to Gadus, Brosmius, Strinsia, and Melanogrammus.