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VThirty-Third Annual Meeting 
Dr. Smith: I think the thanks of the society are due to 
Mr. Atkins for bringing up in so interesting a way the subject 
which is already very important and is destined to become much 
more so. I was glad to notice from the advance programme 
that he was going to talk on this subject, because it is one to 
which I have given considerable attention. 
I am not going to say all I intended to say because the hour 
is late, but I wish to mention one or two points. 
He has mentioned the whiting as having been brought to pub- 
lic notice through the Massachusetts Fish Commission. I do not 
wish to detract anything from the credit due the Massachusetts 
Fish Commission, especially as it has no representative present ; 
but I beheve that the United States Bureau of Fisheries is large- 
ly responsible for the importance which that fish has recently at- 
tained; as twelve or fifteen years ago (as our reports will show) 
we had samples of this fish salted on Cape Cod and distributed 
through the trade to consumers in Massachusetts and elsewhere. 
The growth in the demand for that fish has steadily increased, 
and a year or so ago when I was in Gloucester and saw one of 
the principal fish curers there, I found that he alone had salted 
and sold at very good prices, about one thousand five hundred 
barrels of this whiting which a few years ago had absolutely no 
value in the market and was regarded as a nuisance and always 
thrown away. It is caught in immense numbers in the traps 
on Cape Cod. 
With regard to dogfish I would like to quote something that 
Mr. Bowers said yesterday and which he may have told some of 
the other members. He has just come from Woods Hole and 
has seen a dogfish about three feet long opened, and found to 
contain two eight inch lobsters. The lobsters are becoming de- 
plorably scarce in that region and no doubt the dogfish, which 
is very abundant, is to some extent responsible for the scarcity. 
Mr. Atkins: Let me ask whether you have any evidence of, 
or any notes in relation to, the question as to whether or not the 
skate preys on the lobster. 
Dr. Smith: I have heard that stated, though I have no per- 
sonal knowledge on the subject; but I will present a communi- 
cation here which touches on it. 
