FISHERIES OF THE COASTAL WATERS OF FLORIDA. 11 



while during the warm season it will lie found profitable to wait a little in order to 

 see whether there are any indications of putrefaction. This can be recognized by 

 the darker color and the softening of the respective portions. If anything of the 

 kind is noticed, the sponge should be watched to see to what extent the process of 

 disintegration has progressed. Small sponges will almost entirely fall a prey to it, 

 while in large ones the evil may be confined within certain limits. The cutting 

 should be done rapidly, either with a common knife or — as Mr. Buccich found more 

 advantageous — with a blade resembling a fine saw, which is less liable to be injured 

 by the many foreign bodies inclosed in sponges. In cutting, the sponge had best be 

 laid on a small board moistened with sea water. The size of the cuttings is gener- 

 ally about 26 square millimeters. It is well if every piece has as large a surface as 

 possible of intact outer skin. The cuttings should be fastened immediately to those 

 objects where they are expected to grow. 



A healthy piece of spouge soon grows firmly on any object with which it is brought 

 in close contact. The sponges which have been cut will again grow together. 

 Those cuttings which have only a single cut surface will soon grow fast to their new 

 base, stone, wood, etc. Mr. Buccich thinks that during a calm lasting twenty-four 

 consecutive hours, cuttings should simply be sowed on a rocky bottom and would soon 

 grow. He has seen pieces laid on gently slanting rocks grow fast to them during 

 a perfect calm. Induced thereby, and also by the natural occurrence of sponges, 

 Mr. Buccich tried flagstones, about 53 millimeters thick, as a basis. He bored holes 

 in them and fastened the cuttings by means of wooden pegs, which were driven into 

 the holes; but it soon became apparent that the mud and sand at the bottom, per- 

 haps also the excess of light, were injurious to the further growth of the sponges. 

 Experience has shown that light and mud are among the worst enemies of the 

 sponge, and their iniiueuce must be avoided or limited by every possible means. 

 Stones form the natural basis of sponges. They are cheap, and are not attacked by 

 the Teredo. 



Originally, Prof. O. Schmidt used wooden boxes, closed on all sides but perforated, 

 to whose inner sides the pieces of sponge were fastened with metal or wooden pegs. 

 This exceedingly simple arrangement did not prove efficient, because the boxes when 

 let down into the deep water became full of mud, and the holes being stopped up no 

 light whatever could enter. The sponges began to look pale and sickly. It is not 

 good to fasten them with metal pegs, for it seemed to retard their growth. The rust 

 which forms very soon causes the pieces of sponge to become loose, and will ulti- 

 mately destroy them. Laths or boards placed obliquely, on whose upper side there 

 were floating contrivances in the shape of tables, to the lower side of which the 

 sponges were fastened, were likewise used. With the former the want of covering 

 was keenly felt, and with the latter the rays of the sun proved injurious, as well as 

 ill the different little objects floating on the surface of the water which may be 

 grouped together under the collective name of •'dirt." Mr. Buccich at first prepared 

 an apparatus consisting of two boards crossing each other at right angles, with a 

 third hoard serving as a sort of lid, and after this had proved unsatisfactory he 

 adopted the apparatus which I shall now describe, and which he preferred to all 

 others because the cuttings were exposed on all sides to the sea water and assumed 

 the favorite round form. This apparatus consisted of two boards, 63 centimeters long 

 and 40 centimeters broad, one forming the bottom ami the other the lid. Both were 

 kept in a parallel positiou, one above the other, at a distance of about 42 centi- 

 meters, by two props about 11 centimeters distant from each other, between which 

 stones may be placed as ballast. On the outer side of the lid there was a handle. 

 Both boards had holes at a distance of 12 centimeters from each other, the total 

 number of holes in each board, therefore, being 24. Mr. Buccich did not fasten the 

 pieces of sponge singly to the apparatus, but he placed several of them on one peg 

 and then stuck the pegs in the holes. For these pegs he used bamboo, whose hard, 

 smooth bark defies all attacks of worms. These pegs were 42 centimeters long, and 

 perforated horizontally, the holes being at the distance of 12 centimeters from each 



