314 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



such small dimensions that it is imi^racticable, for manifest reasons, to 

 build a barrier so close in structure as to exclude them. Some attempt 

 has been made to catch them in traps, made of laths and baited with 

 fish, crab meat, clams, etc. These traps are constructed and tended 

 like lobster pots, and while it has been found that the starfish can be 

 taken through their agency, the method is too laborious and inefficient 

 to be used for the protection of extensive beds. Various devices for 

 catching starfish have been patented from time to time, but none of 

 them appear to have been of practical value. 



Upon the theory that the starfish prefers the mussel to the oyster as 

 food, it has been proposed to surround the oyster-beds with a growth 

 of mussels with the expectation that the starfish will not pass over the 

 mussel bed to obtain the less desired oysters. Investigations in Long 

 Island Sound show that this expectation is not realized in practice, 

 and, moreover, in favorable locations, the growth of mussels is so rank 

 that they themselves become a menace to the planter by overgrowing 

 his beds and sutfocatiug the oysters. This method of protection is also 

 wrong in principle, for by supplying the starfish with additional food 

 we better its conditions and thereby aid in increasing its numbers. 



For catching starfish some planters use the ordinary oyster-dredge, 

 an implement which has some advantages when it is desired to cull the 

 stock, but, in general, it involves unnecessary labor and also crushes 

 and kills many young oysters. A lighter dredge of similar construction 

 is also used, and on the shallow beds tongs may be sometimes employed 

 to advantage. 



The oyster-growers of Long Island Sound, who have had more expe- 

 rience in fighting starfish than those of any other section, find that 

 eternal vigilance is the price which tliey must pay for even the compara- 

 tive safety of their beds. The beds are closely watched and worked 

 over with dredges and tangles. Tugs are kept more or less constantly 

 at work, and all starfishes taken, either in the ordinary work of oyster 

 dredging or during "starring," are carefully destroyed. Thousands of 

 bushels are caught during the year and much money is expended in 

 the work, the result being that many beds, through timely and unceas- 

 ing attention, are saved from utter destruction. The tangles or mops 

 employed are an adaptation of a device long used by naturalists for 

 collecting spiny forms from the sea bottom, and their use in fighting 

 the starfish was first suggested by the United States Fish Commission. 

 They consist essentially of an iron bar to which small chains or wires 

 are attached at intervals of about a foot, mops or bundles of rope yarn, 

 cotton waste, or similar material being distributed at short distances 

 along the chains. The bar is fastened to the ordinary dredge line or 

 chain and is dragged over the bottom, being hauled in at frequent 

 intervals for the removal of the starfish which have become entangled. 

 Most of the tangles used in Long Island Sound have frames weighing 

 from 100 to 150 pounds, and to prevent this heavy mass of metal from 

 crushing small and thin-shelled oysters they are provided with a hoop, 



