556 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
regulations for the mussel fishery than the one in force. In company 
with representatives of the Ar kansas fish commission, Mr. Chamber- 
lain spent over three months in examining the state of the mussel 
fishery in Arkansas waters. A large number of shellers and shell 
buyers were interviewed, and tentative recommendations were drawn 
embody: ng alternate open and closed sections of the rivers, which 
were given publicity in the State press. Criticisms and suggestions 
were invited, which resulted in some minor changes, but the “revised 
recommendations were acted upon favorably by the commission 
in November and are to go into effect on February 1, 1927. 
The new series of sections alternately opened and closed fiers 
from the old, mainly in that the average length per section is a 
little under 15 miles, as opposed to the 70 miles’ provided for in the 
program that failed. It will be possible now for all shellers who 
live along the river fronts to be within a convenient distance of 
some open territory at all t-mes. 
After completing the work in Arkansas, Mr. Chamberlain began 
a new series of mussel surveys in certain waters of the upper Missis- 
sippl. In these surveys it is planned to develop new methods, based 
upon those used by Doctor Weymouth in his studies of the salt- 
water clams of the Pacific coast. 
‘A survey of the mussel beds of certain rivers in Virg.nia was made 
by H. O. Hesen, superintendent of fish culture at the Fairport 
station, to determine the effect of former plantings of commercial 
mussels taken from the Mississippi River. Mr. Hesen made fresh 
planting of several thousand young mussels, reared by the trough- 
culture method, which was employed on a small scale at Fairport 
during the summer. There was no indication that commercial 
mussels had become established in Virginia waters. 
In connection with the studies of the life history of the more 
valuable fresh-water mussels, a particular study of the habits of 
the two species of gar found in the Mississippi in the vicinity of 
Fairport was made during the past summer by Doctor Ellis. ‘One 
or both species of gar are the hosts for the glochidia of the most 
valuable of all the fresh-water mussels—the yellow sand_ shell 
(Lampsilis anodontotdes). 
TERRAPIN CULTURE 
The experimental work in breeding diamond-back terrapins at the 
Beaufort (N. C.) fisheries biological station continued to give inter- 
esting results. Experiments in hybridizing Carolina and Texas ter- 
rapins were started in 1915. It was hoped that in cross-breeding 
the two species, a fast-growing animal with a flavor scarcely inferior 
to that of the Carolina terrapin might be produced. 
A cooperative arrangement for ‘hatching terrapins, entered into 
with the fisheries commission board of North Carolina in 1925, has 
been extended. An additional concrete pound, 125 feet in length 
and 64 feet in width, was constructed to hold 1,235 breeding terra- 
pins, which the State has supplied. It is purposed to hatch a lar ge 
number of terrapins and to hold these young animals at the station 
until they have attained a considerable size and have passed through 
the most critical stages of life, when they are to be liberated for re- 
stocking the sadly depleted waters. Several hundred young animals 
were liberated in the vicinity of Beaufort from 1914 to 1924, and as 
