94 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
belong to the carp family and are inverterate spawn eaters ? Why 
not include the catfish, sturgeon and the western trout—the 
Dolly Varden—known to all the west coast as the worst spawn 
eater in the whole list? 
Mr. Meehan: We do not have him in Pennsylvania. 
Dr. Bean: You have the rainbow trout which is another 
guilty one. ‘There is another spawn eater that consumes great 
quantities of the eggs of the shad; shall we outlaw him? I 
refer to the homo sapiens. (Laughter. ) 
Of course he is not a fish, but he goes around among the 
fish and we have got to treat all people alike it seems to me. 
There is a little bit of a thing in Pennsylvania called the Miller’s 
Thumb; he is not as big as a miller’s thumb, but his capacity for 
trout eggs and fry is marvelous. Some years ago the Commis- 
sioner of Fisheries of the United States had a live Miller’s 
Thumb down in Washington in an aquarian, and that little 
fellow ate about 20 trout fry inside of a minute and was still 
hungry. We have this Miller’s Thumb, or blob, or fresh water 
sculpin, all over Pennsylvania. Of the 160 varieties of fish in 
Pennsylvania, 100 are fond of eggs. Let us extend this business 
and get rid of them. 
The carp is of course a spawn eater—is an interloper; but 
the people of New York see fit to buy a quarter of a million 
dollars’ worth from Illinois every year; but that cut’s no figure ! 
The Delaware fishermen beg for opportunity to catch them—but 
that makes no difference! The people of Great South Bay, 
Long Island, are crazy about the crap, but never mind that! 
The greatest difficulty I have had with my boatmen there has 
been to get him off the carp grounds—he was so fond of it! Per- 
haps it was because they are fond of eggs and he was too—a 
bond of sympathy between them. (Laughter. ) 
We ought not to go about the destruction of carp in this 
wholesale way. It may be true that we ought not to have intro- 
duced carp; I think there is a great deal of “acclimatization” so 
called that had better be left alone; but we have the carp; the 
fishermen get a lot of money out of him; and it is only fair if we 
are going to apply legislation to this fish, that we undertake also 
to get rid of all the minnows, suckers, blobs, and every other 
