232 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



He would continually sail back and forth, round and round over the ground, and catcli the ugly visitors as fast as 

 they came. There are in Norwalk harbor about 700 acres of cultivated bottom. This would need the persistent 

 services of 70 men, therefore, at a total annual expense of not less than -SSOjOOO. In lieu of this, the oystei'men who 

 own contiguous beds, shoidd combine during the summer to dredge the starfishes all off a certain district, and 

 divide the exjjense or labor equally among them all. Such combined and persistent work, when the plague first 

 appears, will certainly clear them off; and when once they are got rid of, they will not be again troublesome until 

 the following season, and then in less numbers. There is no more reason why the starfishes cannot be so reduced 

 in Long Island sound, that they shall not be harmful to the oyster-beds, than there is why the Canada thistle cannot 

 be kept down in the three shore counties of Connecticut. It is merely a question of steady labor. But this labor 

 must be unselfish. I heard it whispered, that certain oystermen would keep very quiet so long as no sea-stars were 

 on their own acre or two, rejoicing slyly in the losses their rivals in business were sustaining. So short-sighted and 

 unmanly a policy as this must be abandoned. 



It was also suggested to me, and I advised with many planters in Connecticut and New York on the matter, 

 that a bounty might profitably be paid for the destruction of starfi.shes. The question was: Who shall pay this 

 bounty ? 



It was thought by many that the general government should do it, but 1 consider this obviously a mistake. 

 Another opinion was, that the state should do so ; but only a portion of the state is interested, and much opposition 

 would no doubt be manifested by the inhabitants inland. The same would, perhaps, be true of the shore counties if 

 they attempted the scheme, though to a less extent. It seems, then, that thei^roi^er source to look to for appropriations 

 for such an object, are the townships along the shore in whose waters the oystermen rent their ground and plant. 

 This confines the expense to the district benefited, and, by making one oflicer in each town an inspector of the 

 claims and the only authorized paymaster, restricts the possibilities of fraud. 



The next question is: How much shall the bounty be? This ought to vary somewhat in difierent localities, 

 according to scarcity, value of interests risked, etc. In general it was thought that the claim ought to be based 

 upon count rather than measure, and that in western Connecticut from 5 to 10 cents a hundred would be large 

 enough to encourage constant effort to collect them, and not too large to prove a profitable investment in the 

 amount saved. I suppose that the town authorities could redeem a considerable percentage of their outlay, by 

 selling the starfishes collected to farmers for manure, or to factories to be made into fertilizers. 



I am not aware that any steps have been taken by any of the towns to set a bounty upon the capture of this 

 ])lague; but if combined action were taken, I feel sure it would be wise, and the results conspicuously beneficial to 

 tlie whole oyster-interest. If the towns will do nothing of the sort, an association of oystermen, at such crowded 

 producing points as City Island, Stamford, Eowayton, South ISTorwalk, New Haven, and Providence would no doubt 

 find it profitable. 



Some years ago a trial was made in Narraganset bay of a trawl, made after the pattern introduced about 

 1872 bj' the United States Fish Commission. The Fish Commissioners of Ehode Island, in company with a firm of 

 oyster-planters at Providence, went down the bay, and swept one of tlie oyster-beds with the improved trawl, 

 hauled by a steam-tug. "On hauling it up, in a few minutes they counted nearly two hundred starfish, large and 

 small, which were snared and caught at this first haul. A second haul brought up still more." If this rei)ort is 

 correct, it is strange that so eft'ective an instrument was abandoned. A still more useful appliance is the 

 "tangles", made of rope-yarn and shaped like a mop or a deck-swab. This being drawn over the bottom, the 

 stirfish are entangled in its film. The "tangles" are constantly used in the natural history work of the United 

 States Fish Commission. Tens of thousands of starfish are sometimes brought up at one haul. 



The drill. — A sjuall but luimerous and persistent enemy of the oyster, is the "drill" or "borer". Under this 

 name is included, however, a luimerous class of univalve mollusks, which are carinvorous in their tastes, and armed 

 with a tongue-ribbon, so shaped and so well supplied with flinty teeth, that by means of it they can file a round 

 hole through an oyster's shell. The mode in which it is done has been clearly described by the Kev. Samuel Lockwood, 

 as follows: 



The tongue is set with three rows of teeth like a file; it is, in fact, a tongne-flle, or dental band, and is called hy conchologists the 

 lingii.al ribbon. » » » Having with the utmost care witnessed a number of times the creature iu the burglarious act, I give the 

 following as my view of the case: With its lleshy dislc, called the foot, it secures by adhesion a lirm hold on the ni)pcr part of the oyster's 

 shell. The dental ribbon is next brought to a curvo, and ouc point of this curve, on its convex sid(^, is brought to bear directly on the 

 desired spot. At this point the teeth arc set perpendicularly, and the curve, resting at this poiut as on a drill, is made to rotate one circle, 

 or nearly so, when the rotation is reversed; an<l so the movements are alternated, until, after hmg and patient labor, a perforation is 

 accomplislied. Tliis alternating movement, I tliiuk, must act favorably on the teeth, tending to Ivcep them sh.arp. To understand the 

 precise movement, let the reader crook bis forelinger, and, inserting the knuckle in t lie palm of the opjiosite hand, give to it, by tlie action 

 of the wrist, the sort of rotation described. The hole thus efl'ected by the drill is hardly so much as a Hue in diameter. It is very neatly 

 countersunk. The hole finished, the little Ijurglar inserts its siphon or sucking-tube, and thus feeds u|iou the occupant of the liouse into 

 which it has efl'ected a forced entrauce. To a mechanic's eye there is something positively beautiful in the symmetry of the bore thus 

 eft'ected — it is so "true"; he could not do it better himself, even with his superior tools and intelligence. 



These small "snails", "drills", "borers", and "snail-bores", as they are variously called, belong to several 

 species of Natica, Purpura, Anacltin, Astyris, Tritia, Ilyanassa, etc.; but the master and most destructive, as well 



