56 AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



St. Lucas, northerly, has been explored by many competent 

 naturalists at various times, extending back to nearly the begin- 

 ning of the present century. Since the American occupation of 

 California, commencing with 1849, several intelligent collectors 

 have resided there, and others have visited the coast. It would 

 have been impossible for so familiar a form, inhabiting, too, the 

 easily accessible litoral zone, to have escaped detection : and 

 corroborative of the above, we have the further evidence of the 

 kitchen-middens or shell heaps of the aborigines, many of which 

 have been examined by me without detecting any sign of this 

 easy recognized species. 

 Washington, D. C. 



TRANSPORTING FISH IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 



BY W. V. cox. 



The improved methods of refrigeration so extensively prac- 

 ticed in the meat and fish carrying trade of the United States, 

 were not applied to those industries in England at tlie time of 

 the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883. 



Even the old method of packing fish in boxes with ice for 

 transporting purposes, was very defective, if we may judge 

 by the condition of the fish when they arrived and the boxes 

 were opened. 



In the markets of London, I frequently saw whole boxes of 

 fish that came from a comparatively short distance " packed in 

 ice," that were spoiled and totally unfit for food. Very often 

 the fish were discolored, and seldom were they very inviting in 

 appearance. If it had not been that a fugitive piece of ice was 

 occasionally discovered in the box with wet straw, there would 

 scarcely have been a suspicion that there had been an attempt 

 made to carry the fish in ice. It seems strange that there was 

 such a lack of application of the well-known discoveries of pre- 

 servation, not only in inland and local water transportation, but 



