Inside a Cod

Found 13 February 1897, Buckie, Moray Firth.

In a lemonade bottle, inside the stomach of a large cod:

Schooner Lucio foundered eighty-six miles off Dunnet Head. God help us. — J. Clunas, Ghent, Lerwick.

A catch of 5,000 cod was being gutted at James Gerry’s Buckie fish-curing yard when this “remarkable discovery” was made. As reported by the Sheffield Independent: “On one large cod being opened a lemonade bottle, tightly corked, and bearing the name of Messrs. J. Hassack and Co., Elgin, was found in its stomach.” Inside the bottle was a leaf of paper that had apparently been hastily torn from a pocket book, bearing a message from J. Clunas. Dunnet Head is on the north coast of Scotland, near to John O’Groats and around 75 miles north of Buckie. The references to Ghent and Lerwick suggest the vessel could have been sailing from Belgium to the Shetland Islands.

[Sheffield Independent, 15 February 1897]