58 American Fisheries Society 



of the Bureau of Fisheries. Mr. Stranahan, the superintendent, 

 claimed that every species of animal, land or water, is suitable for 

 food. Some, of course, are not as toothsome as others, but all are 

 wholesome, more or less palatable, and nutritious to some degree. 

 \\ hen fishing through the ice we caught a good many mud puppies, 

 commonly known as "water-lizards." They are quite numerous in the 

 shoal waters of Lake Erie, and certainly very repulsive in appearance. 

 At first I did not dare take them off the hook with my hands, but I 

 soon got over that. One day Mr. Stranahan said : "I am going to eat 

 one of these mud puppies." He wanted me to join him. My preju- 

 dices would not allow me to do so, but he dressed one, put it on a 

 shovel, took it to the furnace in the engine room, cooked it over the 

 coals, brought it into the office, salted and peppered it, ate it with a 

 great deal of evident relish, and said it was just as good as whitefish. 

 I can testify that it looked as good, smelled as good, and that the flesh 

 was white, firm and flaky and apparently all right. He prophesied that 

 some day it would be considered a great delicacy and sought for the 

 same as turtles and frogs, which were once tabooed, just as the Meno- 

 branchus is today — the mud puppy. 



There is no good reason why the dogfish should not be eaten ; 

 but I believe that, in view of the rapidly increasing price of fish and 

 the fact that a great many fish within the memory of nearly all of us 

 which were not marketable at all, are now bringing a good price, the 

 day is not far distant when the dogfish will find ready market at a 

 fair price. 



Mr. C. K. Cranston, Pendleton, Ore. : I never saw a dogfish, and 

 do not know what they look like; but I want to ask Mr. Miles if it is 

 not possible that the food upon which the dogfish may have subsisted 

 may not have had something to do with its flavor. As a reason for 

 asking this question 1 want to say — and I think you will all agree with 

 me — that the rainbow trout is a very fine fish, but it may surprise you 

 to hear me say that I have tasted rainbow trout that were not fit to 

 eat ; and that I attributed it to the fact that the ones that were not 

 eatable were those that had subsisted on the wrong sort of food. It 

 may be possible that the dogfish which were first pronounced of bad 

 quality had fed on bad food. I have eaten rainbow trout of all degrees 

 of excellence from, I suppose, the best fish that the Lord ever made, 

 down to those that, when taken in the mouth, were so unpalatable that 

 you would have to spit them out. 



Mr. Miles : I have known them to be thrown back, when fish 

 were plentiful; but the dogfish is as beautiful as the bass or the trout; 

 there is nothing unsightly about him, and he lives on the same food as 

 the bass. 



Prof. H. B. Ward, Urbana, 111. : As this seems to be an experience 

 meeting, I might say a word with reference to the subject matter of 

 the discussion. Give an animal a bad name and hang it. Really the 

 name dogfish is not properly applied to the fish in question. As those 



