American Fisheries Socvety. 181 
turing these pests, or let the government employ special vessels 
for the purpose, until the plague is reduced. 
5. Pay a bounty of one cent for every five tails of dogfish 
($2.00 per 1,000) brought to a fishery officer and after being 
officially recorded, destroyed by such officer. Many fishermen 
have declared that they get 1,000 dogfish in a single day fre- 
quently; yet it is asserted that even $2.50 per 1,000 would not 
pay. 
6. Pay a bounty on the basis of the weight of the dogfish 
captured, say so much per 100 pounds. Some parties claim that 
$2.00 or $3.00 per ton or half a cent per fish would pay the fish- 
ermen, while others say that, as the dogfish would average a 
weight of four pounds, such a bounty of one cent each fish would 
pay. Thus the suggested rates range from ten cents or fifteen 
cents per 100 pounds to- twenty-five cents per 200 pounds. 
7. Pay a bounty on the total yield of oil, a fixed rate on each 
gallon of oil produced by a factory being guaranteed to any firm 
or company carrying on reduction works. 
8. Use long seines of strong cord, 41,000 yards or more in 
length, under departmental direction, and surround the schools, 
as is done with the schools of sharks in India. 
Dogfish have not been found wholly useless. Their livers 
yield oil, and their bodies can be made into fertilizers; but their 
capture for the oil has been found unprofitable, and the presence 
of the oil has interfered with their use as fertilizers. The scheme 
that now appears to promise best, is for the public to apply their 
teeth and eat the dogfish up. There have been some experiments 
made in this direction, which have at least shown that the flesh 
of the dogfish is palatable, and that it is nutritious cannot be 
doubted. Investigation of this matter is in progress at the Lab- 
oratory of the Bureau of Fisheries at Woods Hole, a report of 
which, to be expected in the near future, will undoubtedly be of 
great interest and importance. 
The Woods Hole investigation originated in a study of the 
conditions affecting the abundance of lobsters. It was found 
that young lobsters were the prey of sundry fishes and especially 
of the dogfish. Attention being turned to the utilization of the 
dogfish it was found, in addition to the vield of oil from the liver, 
which was already known, that glue could be made from its fins 
