12 PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS. 



known that it can be replaced by one of the more suitable methods, 

 or else that it is so positively injurious as to require its elimination. 

 The only implement of capture against which complaints are gen- 

 erally made is the crowfoot hook, but this is the only method in gen- 

 eral use which is adapted for taking mussels in the deeper water, and 

 it is probably in more common use than any other method. Perhaps 

 in time improvements upon this hook will be adopted to lessen its 

 injuriousness, or other methods capable of replacing it will be better 

 known. In the light of present conditions it would work an unneces- 

 sary hardship upon a very large number of fishermen to prevent its 

 use, especially when it appears that the protection of the mussels can 

 be accomplished by methods more equitable to all concerned. 



Still other measures have sometimes been advanced looking to the 

 limitation of the number of shellers to be permitted to work within 

 a given territory or to the leasing of shelling rights. Since such pro- 

 posals have not yet been offered in connection with any properly 

 worked-out plan by which serious injustice would be avoided and the 

 interest of the public safeguarded they may be dismissed with the 

 remark that it is not simply the protection of mussels that is desired 

 but the protection of the mussels for human use without interference 

 with common human rights. The absence of inherent wrong in an 

 idea does not commend it if it carries within itself the seeds of its 

 own defeat by a method of application, or a want of method, that 

 allows opportunity for manifestly unjust and intolerable conditions 

 to arise. 



There remains to deal with the necessity for the two measures that 

 are advwated and to discuss the methods of application. This can 

 be more adequately done in distinct sections. 



SIZE LIMIT— NECESSITY AND APPLICATION. 



J:XH AIT STIVE NATURE OF THE FISHERY. 



The necessity for imposing restrictions upon the size of mussels 

 to be removed from the beds is brought out more clearly by the 

 photographs than could be done by any lengthy discussion. All 

 of the shells shown in plates i and ii were actually taken for 

 market, sold, and shipped to the factory. The smallest ones (in the 

 three upper rows on plate i) were not wanted at any factory; they 

 were bought only because the fishermen had thrown them into the 

 piles along with the larger shells, " to add weight." Most of the 

 very smallest shells, those under 1 inch in length, are subsequently 

 lost in handling, by falling through the forks or otherwise wasting 

 as they are thrown into the car or from the car to the bin. None of 

 the shells in the three upper rows of plate i would ordinarily be 

 used by any manufacturer. It is true that some of the shells shown 



