THE NAUTILUS. 



VOL. XXV. NOVEMBER, 1911. No. 7 



COLLECTING SHELLS FROM THE ABALONE. 



BY T. S. OLDROTD. 



At White's Point, four miles from San Pedro, California, is a 

 station for the Japanese abalone gatherers. They go around to the 

 different islands and places along the main shore where they are 

 plentiful. The divers, in their suits, go down in from two to six or 

 eight fathoms, pry the shells from the rocks, and put them in a sling 

 net, and they are hauled on deck, the average day's work being from 

 one to two tons. They are brought to the station, where the meat is 

 taken out, boiled, dried in the sun, packed in cans and shipped, 

 mostly to China, I am told, where they are considered quite a deli- 

 cacy. The shells are piled up on shore, and are sold to jewelry 

 and novelty manufacturers. The red abalone (ffaliotis rufescens 

 Swains.) they get on the island of Santa Cruz and places to the 

 north of here, while the Green Abalone (ffaliotis fulgens Phil.), 

 the corrugated (Haliotis corrugata Gray), and the black (ffaliotis 

 cracherodii Leach) are found further south. The shells are not 

 things of beauty to look at in their natural state, most of them being 

 badly worm-eaten and covered with moss, barnacles and Vermetus 

 tubes ; Lithophagus plumula Hani., and Pholadidia sagiUa Stearns 

 bore holes in the shells and sometimes bore through and the animal 

 has to protect itself by covering them over with patches of nacre. 

 Among the moss barnacles and Vermetus, are ideal protected places 

 for the small and microscopic shells to live in. None of these live 

 on the abalone exclusively, but in the protected places in the rocks 

 and stones, as well. I do not know as they prefer the Haliotis to 



