148 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
sounds, too, of the cod, hake, and other gadoid fishes are very highly 
valued for food, and are usually put up salted separately. The air- 
bladders or sounds of fish have already been referred to as of special 
commercial value, those of the sturgeon furnishing the well-known 
Russian isinglass, and being utilized for the same purpose. 
Of late years the air-bladders of the hake have been collected very 
assiduously, and are worth more than all the rest of its body. They 
are gathered especially on the coast of Maine and in the Bay of Fundy, 
where vessels are in the habit of visiting the different fishing stations 
and buying these sounds for from 50 cents to $1.25 a pound. The drum, 
squeteague, and, indeed, almost any other of our species in which the 
walls of the air-bladder are thickened, and that organ is of considerable 
size, are valued for the same purpose. Several fresh-water fish in South 
America are also utilized in the same direction. There are establish- 
ments in Massachusetts where the business of collecting the air-bladders 
of fishes of all kinds, and of working them up into marketable products, 
is carried on. 
The skins of many fishes, too, are convertible into a coarse gelatine 
or tenacious glue. In Russia the cartilaginous backbone of the stur- 
geon is highly prized as an article of food, and is collected and sold in 
bundles like whips. 
The roes of a great many fish are used as a special article of food, 
sometimes with the rest of the animal, as of the herring ; at others sep- 
arate from it. The roes of the mullet of the southern coast of the 
United States are salted and barreled and consumed largely through- 
out the interior of the adjacent States, the meat itself being less prized. 
The caviare of thé sturgeon is a well-known article of commerce, and 
is now being put up in the United States in large quantities, particu. 
larly for export to Europe. 
I have already referred to the extent to which the business of putting 
up fish in oil and spices and. inclosing them in hermetically sealed tin® 
cans is carried on abroad, particularly by the inhabitants of France, 
Spain, Italy, and Portugal, this process having been until recently 
scarcely known in the United States; but it now bids fair to become 
an important element of our industries. Few persons realize the ex- 
tent to which the menhaden is utilized in this direction, several estab- 
lishments in New Jersey finding it really difficult to secure a sufficient 
supply of fresh fish to meet their demands. Here they are put up. in 
oil under name of American sardines, or spiced and known as ocean 
tront. The herring is also put up both in oil and spices in New York 
and at Kastport, in Maine. Mackerel are preserved to some extent in 
Canada in pound cans, like the canned salmon, several thousand pounds 
being included in the returns of the proceeds of the Canadian fisheries 
for 1876. 
There is no doubt but that there is a wide field in America for the 
utilization of fish in this way, and that a large market could soon be 
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