556° BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
and similar material, there is always considerable waste and much time is lost 
through the dulling of knives and the necessity of avoiding obstacles too stout to 
cut. For this reason it is economy to select the cleaner specimens for seed when 
they can be readily obtained. The sponges as fast as detached from the bottom 
should be placed in a gunny sack or net attached to the side of the boat or, if 
taken by diving, carried by the diver, the sack when full being emptied into a 
live car. During cool or moderately warm weather, treated thus, they will re- 
main alive and uninjured for several weeks, though if the sea be rough their sur- 
faces are likely to become more or less abraded by rubbing against the sides of 
the car. They must not be brought into water at all brackish, however, or they 
will be speedily killed. In warm weather if long confined even in salt water 
some will sicken and die, and the resulting foul water will soon produce a general 
epidemic. 
In carrying live sponges from the beds to the planting grounds a boat- 
shaped or spindle-shaped live car will be found most convenient, as either can 
be towed rapidly and for long distances without injuring the contents. The 
car should be provided with several “thwart-ship”’ bulkheads or partitions 
dividing it into compartments, and the slits or perforations in the forward end 
should be small or narrow so as to reduce the violence of the currents set up 
by its rapid passage through the water. If these openings be large, the sponges 
will churn violently or be massed under pressure at the after ends of the com- 
partments and are certain to be more or less injured. The car preferably 
should be constructed entirely of wooden slats and boards, as wire netting 
tends to abrade and injure the surfaces of the sponges. Where a boat with a 
small ‘well’ is available, sponges can be transported in that, or when the 
distance is short they may be carried in tubs of water protected from the sun 
by cloths or sacks, but they should be removed from the tubs and placed in 
open water as soon as opportunity occurs. In cool weather they can be readily 
carried for many hours without water if they are protected from the sun and 
rain and kept moist with sea water. At the planting grounds the sponges 
may be kept best and most conveniently by stringing them on rope yarns about 
5 or 6 feet long, the two ends of which are then tied to stout lines or wires 
stretched between stakes so that the sponges are suspended just clear of the 
bottom. In a situation where the water is sufficiently salt and pure they will 
readily live longer than the lines will last, and at the same time they will be 
easily accessible, those required from time to time being conveniently detached 
without disturbing the remainder. 
There is some reason to believe, as is discussed later, that in regions which 
have been for years subject to an intense fishery, especially where the water is 
shallow and generally clear, a race of slow-growing small sponges may be devel- 
oped by constantly selecting out the larger more rapidly growing specimens, 
