Our Fish Immigrants 



399 



to introduce the English sole and turbot 

 •on our Atlantic coast were unsuccessful, 

 owing probably to the comparatively- 

 small number of fish brought over and 

 planted. There is no reason to doubt 

 that these species could be readily estab- 

 lished on our northeast coast, although 

 it must be said that the sole and turbot, 

 choice food fishes as they are, would not 

 be unrivaled, additions to our flat-fish 

 fauna. 



One of the most surprising failures 

 has been the entire inability to establish 

 the whitefish of the Great Lakes in Pend 

 d'Oreile, Coeur d'Alene, and other large 

 lakes of the northwest. Depth, temper- 

 ature, and other conditions seem to be 

 favorable, but for some unknown reason 

 plants aggregating millions have been 

 futile. 



There is probably no food animal of 

 the eastern seaboard whose acclimatiza- 

 tion on the Pacific coast would prove 

 such a boon as the lobster. The omis- 

 sion of the lobster from the Pacific fauna 

 is regarded as a misfortune by the people 

 of the west coast, and it was in response 

 to this feeling that the Federal Fishery 

 Bureau more than 30 years ago made its 

 first move to supply the deficiency. Three 

 other transhipments of adult lobsters 

 were made, the last in 1889, the deposits 

 being at various points from Monterey 

 Bay to Puget Sound. No positive re- 

 sults having appeared, the Bureau re- 

 newed the attempt in the fall of 1906, and 

 dispatched to Puget Sound a special car- 

 load of brood lobsters numbering more 

 than all the previous plants combined, 

 and further consignments will be made 

 until the lobster is removed from the list 

 of failures and recorded as a great finan- 

 cial and gastronomic success. 



FURTHER WORK OP ACCLIMATIZATION 



What opportunities and what neces- 

 sities for further fish acclimatization the 

 future has in store can only be conjec- 

 tured, but there is no reason to believe 

 that additional work will not become de- 

 sirable, as a result of the depletion of 

 waters of their native fishes, changes in 



the physical conditions of streams and 

 lakes, etc., and to satisfy the longing for 

 something new and something better that, 

 like hope, "springs eternal in the human 

 breast." 



Among the measures that have been 

 suggested and will no doubt in time be 

 taken up are the transplanting of the 

 diamond-back terrapin and the blue crab 

 in the marshes and bays of California and 

 the establishing of the giant crab of the 

 Pacific coast along the shores of the 

 North Atlantic states. 



Foreign waters also may be drawn on 

 to augment the supply of economic ani- 

 mals and to fulfill certain special require- 

 ments. Objects which have been under 

 consideration are the Japanese dwarf 

 salmon, the Japanese pearl oyster, and the 

 Japanese edible oyster, the last being 

 recommended for the cold waters of the 

 northwest coast, where the Atlantic 

 oyster is not able to perpetuate itself. 



It has been suggested that the finer 

 grades of Mediterranean toilet sponges 

 might profitably be introduced into the 

 waters of Florida, and the British gov- 

 ernment has considered the same project 

 with reference to the Bahamas. Now, 

 for all ordinary purposes, there are no 

 better sponges produced anywhere in the 

 world than on the gulf coast of Florida. 

 The Florida sheepswool combines all the 

 desirable qualities of a toilet sponge- 

 softness, elasticity, durability. Another 

 native sponge of excellent quality is the 

 fine - meshed, smooth - surfaced yellow 

 sponge, which ranks next to the sheeps- 

 wool in economic value ; but for special 

 purposes some of the small, fine-textured, 

 soft, Mediterranean sponges have no sub- 

 stitute, and large quantities are imported. 

 Whereas the best Florida sponges com- 

 mand a maximum price of $5 per pound 

 wholesale, the Levant toilet sponges 

 sometimes sell for $50 per pound. It 

 would be a splendid achievement to in- 

 troduce such sponges and enable our own 

 people to reap some of the benefits of so 

 lucrative a fishery. The questions in- 

 volved in the project are: (i) Can the 

 sponges be successfuly transported from 



