148 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



sounds, too, of the cod, bake, 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 furnishiug the well-known 

 Russian isinglass, and beiug utilized for the same purpose. 



Of late years the air-bladders of the hake have been collected very 

 assiduously, and are wprth 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 fishiug 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 the 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 tb 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 

 trout. The herring is also put up both in oil and spices in New York 

 and at Eastport, in Maine. Mackerel are preserved to some extent in 

 Canada in pound cans, like tbe 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 offish in this way, and that a large market could soon be 



