264 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



tified and filed away in the study collection. By referring 

 to that study collection we hope, when it has grown suffi- 

 ciently, to be able to answer any questions about fishes 

 which may be put to us. Of course, in gathering material 

 like this for study, from time to time we discover new 

 species. [Slide of a small blenny, Stathmonotus tekla.] 

 This is one that has been obtained recently. 



[Colored slide of a wreckfish.] This slide shows a fish 

 obtained by the aquarium. This is very rare on our coast. 

 It was identified as the European wreckfish (stone bass) 

 and sent to the museum for storage. From time to time 

 we are called upon to take care of rare fishes, secured in 

 various ways. 



DISCUSSION 



Dr. Benjamin M. Briggs, Brooklyn: Could you inform us as to the 

 possibility of utilizing the shark? We let the shark live and propagate; 

 we lose the food the shark feeds on, the shark increases and our food 

 fishes decrease through lack of the food appropriated by the shark. It 

 eats good food always. It is not a scavenger. If anyone knows of 

 any means of utilizing it, we would like the information. 



Mr. Donald Nicoll, New York : I think that the Bureau of Fish- 

 eries has been doing some work to see how the shark could be utilized; 

 but I do not know about that personally. 



President : We should like to hear a word or two on that subject 

 from Dr. Evermann. 



Dr. B. W. Evermann, Washington, D. C. : Dr. I. A. Field, who had 

 a paper before the Society yesterday, has experimented at Woods Hole 

 for two or more seasons on the utilization of the dogfish, and has put 

 them up in various forms. I do not know whether he is present; if 

 so he could describe the work. 



In brief it may be said that he put up the dogfish of both species in 

 several very palatable forms, and there was, and perhaps still is in 

 Nova Scotia a place where they are canning dogfish for the general 

 market. The only difficulty now is to create a demand for that sort 

 of food. There is no question about the edibility and palatability of it; 

 the thing to overcome is popular prejudice. 



Dr. Theodore Gill, Washington, D. C. : I can testify as to the 

 edibility and palatability of the dogfish of both species. Under the 

 name of dogfish are considered two very distinct kinds of fishes. The 

 dogfish of the southern portion of the country, that is, south of Cape 

 Cod, belongs to the same family as most of the sharks that are found 

 along the littoral of the warm and temperate waters. The dogfish of 

 the countries north of Cape Cod is of an entirely different species; it 



