452 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
results from decomposition. In hot sunny weather death comes rather quickly 
and the internal tissues begin to slough in a day or two, but when it is cold and 
cloudy a week of exposure is sometimes insufficient to kill the tissues throughout, 
the result often being the retention of more or less hardened matter in the sub- 
stance of the cured sponge, to the detriment of its value and very difficult to 
remove by subsequent treatment. The spongers recognize this fact, but being 
imbued with the idea that the sponge is dead as soon as removed from the water 
they ascribe it not to retained vitality but to what they call ‘‘ chilling,” a physical 
change in the fleshy substance of the sponge which causes it to resist decay. 
During the process of killing some care has to be exercised to prevent the skin 
from drying and adhering to the skeleton. 
Each hooking vessel has located somewhere along shore at a point accessible 
to the sponge grounds an inclosure called a ‘“‘crawl” or “kraal,”’ about ro feet 
square, constructed of stakes driven close together and nailed to horizontal 
pieces to keep them from spreading. Among the keys the crawls are usually 
isolated, small, and of a temporary character, but on the Bay grounds they are 
more substantial and grouped under the care of a common watchman to prevent 
the depredations liable to occur during the distant absences of the owners. 
The Bay fleet has groups of crawls near Cedar Keys Light and at Baileys Bluff, 
Sawyers, and Union Crawl, just north of the mouth of Anclote River, and at 
various times they have been established at other localities. In these inclosures 
the dead sponges are placed to macerate, the organic matter undergoing rapid 
decomposition and liquefaction. ‘This method appears to have originated in 
the Bahamas, the first sponges produced in Florida being rather poorly cured, 
principally because they were not thoroughly beaten and squeezed. It is 
stated that for similar reasons the first product of the Bay grounds was regarded 
as inferior to the Key sponges and sold at a lower price. 
Usually on Friday night the vessels run in to the crawls, and Saturday is 
spent in ‘‘crawling” the dead sponges of the recent catch and cleaning those 
deposited on the Saturday previous. During the week most of the fleshy 
matter has macerated and washed out and the remainder is removed by 
beating the partly submerged sponge with a short heavy stick and by repeated 
squeezing under water. If particles of skin adhere they are scraped off with 
a dull knife. The crawls are always located in salt or brackish water, as mac- 
eration in fresh water darkens the fiber of the sponge. By means of a long 
needle the cleaned sponges are then strung on rope yarns 6 feet long, the ends 
of which are tied together to form wreaths, technically known as “bunches,” 
which are partly dried and stowed in the hold of the vessel pending the end 
of the trip. The approved method is to string together sponges of approxi- 
mately the same size, “eye and root’”—that is, with the top of one sponge 
against the bottom of its neighbor—but some captains will have their catch 
