THE SUUIMr AND PKAWN FISHERIES. 



709 



some attention should be paid at once to fostering an industry which avaricious fishing may soon 



destroy. 



BAN DIEGO. The fishery about San Diego is at present of very slight extent compared with 

 that of Santa Barbara, but it would undoubtedly admit of greater development, did the demand 

 warrant it. The Chinese alone supply crayfish to this locality from their fishery at Eoseville. 

 They catch large numbers, a part of which are used as bait, the remainder beiug sold to parties 

 who peddle them through the streets after boiling them. Crayfish occur abundantly wherever 

 there is kelp, both inside and outside of the bay and near its mouth. Lobster-pots and dip-nets 

 with bait are used in their capture. 



The quantity of crayfish sold in San Diego is very small. Three years ago the average sales 

 per week amounted to only three or four dozens, and now still less are disposed of. The Chinese 

 are paid from 50 cents to $1 per dozen for them, and by retail on the street they bring from 10 

 to 15 cents each. 



WILMINGTON. But one man engages regularly in the fishery at this place, although this 

 crustacean is very common all along the shore. The pots are visited only two or three times a 

 week, but these few trips are sufficient to collect all that can be sold. There is no regular market 

 and no regular price, but after boiling they are peddled through the streets and retailed at from 

 5 cents to 10 cents per pound. About 20,000 pounds are sold annually. 



Table showing quantity and value of rock lobatera (Panulirits iuterrupttu) taken and sold on Ike California coast in 1880. 



5. THE SHRIMP AND PRAWN FISHERIES. 



(a) THE SHRIMP AND PRAWN FISHERIES OF THE ATLANTIC AND GULF COASTS, 



1. INTRODUCTION. 



THE DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF SHRIMP AND PRAWNS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. Shrimp 



and prawns occur along the entire Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, but the species 

 are of much smaller size at the North than at the South, and shrimp fishing as an industry has 

 thus far been developed, to any extent, at only a few points on the coast of the Southern States. 

 The common shrimp (Crangon vulgaris) and prawn (Palccmonctes vuJgaris) of the New England 

 coast are too small and too rarely found in sufficient abundance to offer many inducements toward 

 a regular fishery. So far as we are aware, the New England prawn is never taken for food, and 

 the shrimp are caught for that purpose only about New Bedford, Newport, and New York. The 

 latter species is, however, occasionally used as bait at many points along the New England coast, 

 but mainly by amateur fishermen. 



On the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts at least two species of shrimp or prawns occur, the 

 names shrimp and prawns, throughout that district, according to several authorities, having ref- 

 erence merely to different sizes of the same species, the s-maller ones being called shrimp and 

 the larger prawns. They are but different stages in the growth of Peneem sctiferus and Penceus 



