92 ILLINOIS BIOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS [190 
of Fisheries has conducted many interesting experiments on the propaga- 
tion of mussels by the artificial infection of fish with mussel glochidia and 
the means and methods for restocking these cleaned-out areas are at hand. 
It only remains for proper laws to be passed and enforced, by the states or 
federal government, or both, regulating the time and place in which shelling 
operations may be carried on. Reasonable time must be given, at least 
three years, for the recovery of a depleted mussel bed. 
In this connection it would seem that the mussel fauna of such a stream 
as the Big Vermilion River might form a reservoir from which the depleted 
beds farther down the stream might be restocked by fish which had been 
infected with glochidia from the commercial species living in the smaller 
stream. The Big Vermilion contains eleven species that are used for 
cutting button blanks and are considered valuable for this purpose by the 
button manufacturers. These are: 
Amblema undulata Blue point 
Lampsilis luteola Fat mucket 
Lampsilis anodontoides Yellow sand-shell 
Lampsilis ventricosa Pocket-book 
Tritogonia tuberculata Buckhorn 
Quadrula pustulosa Warty-back 
Quadrula lachrymosa Maple-leaf 
Actinonaias ligamentina Mucket 
Fusconaia rubiginoas Wabash pig-toe 
Lasmigona complanata White heel-splitter 
Lasmigona costata Fluted shell 
Several of the smaller shells are also used when shells are scarce, as 
Lampsilis compressa, Quadrula metanevra, Obovaria circulus, and Strophitus 
edentulus. In the Sangamon River about the same number of species suit- 
able for the button industry occur and these are usually of fine quality. 
In their survey of the mussel fauna of the Kankakee basin, Wilson and 
Clark (1912:35) recognize the value of these smaller streams, with a fauna 
too small in individuals to be used by the shell fishermen, but containing 
many of the essential species from which good button blanks may be cut. 
These authors say: “The most valuable species are all good breeders 
throughout the basin. This, taken in connection with the excellent quality 
of the shells they produce and the good railroad facilities everywhere 
available, makes this basin one of the best yet examined for the supply 
of glochidia to be used in artificial mussel propagation.” This statement 
might apply with almost equal force to the Big Vermilion, which may 
sometime be needed for a reservoir from which to propagate the mussels 
in the larger rivers. 
Whether all of the fishes which have proved the most satisfactory hosts 
for glochidia are abundant here is not known, but as young of nearly all the 
