American Fisheries Society. 183 
The dogfish to which you refer, | suppose is the horned or 
spined dogfish. 
Mr. Atkins: Yes. 
Dr. Bean: There is another little fellow, not so pesky as 
this one, but he s also very abundant—the rough dogfish. fle 
is not very formidable, however, because his teeth are more like 
some of the teeth of the female ray without cutting edges; but 
he is a nuisance sometimes because he takes the hook intended 
for better fish, destrovs the smaller fishes, and interferes with the 
fishery by consuming the food of the migratory food fishes. 
Mr. Atkins: I am glad to know that the skates are really 
coming into use in New York, and I hope that they will come 
into general use, so that all that are caught on the coast may be 
utilized. ‘Those caught on the coast of Maine are entirely 
wasted. 
Dr. Bean: I am not able to answer that question, because 
I have never tried the dogfish personally—I have eaten skate 
and I think it is a palatable fish. I presume though the chief 
objection to any dogfish would be the toughness of its fibres. 
Its muscles are pretty well sheathed and the sheath is not tender. 
The steel-head salmon was not considered edible because the 
bone is so hard; but it is the chief fish now for export im a hard 
frozen state, and so we might go on and name a number of other 
fish that a few years ago, within our recollection, were not 
market fish at all, but which have now become quite important. 
Take the tunny for example, which is not only a celebrated food 
fish among all Itahans and their descendants, but is quite a 
game fish on the California coast. So the taste in fish seems to 
be changing year by year, and it is quite an advantageous thing 
to learn about certain things that are regarded as nuisances and 
then a little later see them come into market and form a large 
portion of the food supply. 
The blue fish was not eaten when I was a boy—nobody would 
eat a blue fish. The benito was regarded as only fit to be thrown 
away; and I could name a score of fish which have within my 
own recollection come into use. 
