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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Mammals 



W. T. HORNADAY. 



Birds 

 C. William Beebe. 

 Lee S. Crandall. 



SrpartmFntB : 



Aquarium. 



C. H. TOWNSEND. 



Reptiles 

 Raymond L. Ditmars. 



Published bi-monthly at the Office of the Society, 

 11 Wall Street, New York City. 



Yearly by Mail, $1.00. 



MAILED FREE TO MEMBERS. 



Copyright, 1916, by the Neiu York Zoological Society. 



Each author is responsible for the scientific accuracy 



and the proof reading of his contribution. 



Elwin R. Sanborn, 



Editor and Official Photographer 



Vol. XIX, No. 2 



MARCH, 1916 



dim, tropical star-liglit these fishes are well 

 hidden, as but little red can penetrate beneath 

 the sea they appear black and are lost in the 

 surrounding gloom. 



It was Professor Reighard, years ago at 

 Tortugas, who showed that none of these fishes 

 seem to be warningly colored, for no matter 

 how gaudy their hues they are at once devoured 

 by their larger fellows, if they can be caught; 

 but the tortuous crevices and the strings of 

 coral beach afford protection to manj^ a languid 

 swimmer with huge and ravenous enemies 

 around him. 



Reighard made some curious experiments. 

 He accustomed the grey snapper which lived 

 beneath the Tortugas wharf to expect a daily 

 breakfast of a bucket full of silvery sardines or 

 Atherina. Then one day he threw in a bucket- 

 full in which half of the sardines were dyed 

 a brilliant carmine red while the others were of 

 their normal, silver hue. The silvery ones were 

 eaten 'first and only slowly and later were the 

 red ones devoured ; but after three or four days 

 both red and silvery ones were recognized as 

 equally good and were devoured with equal 

 avidity. 



Then he dyed some of the sardines blue and 

 although at first these strange looking fishes 

 were avoided yet soon they, too, were recog- 

 nized as being quite as palatable as silvery or 

 red sardines. 



Then the most interesting test of his experi- 

 ment was tried. Some stinging tentacles of a 

 jelly fish were cleverly hidden in the mouths of 

 the blue fish, and silvery, red and blue ones 

 were thrown to the hungry gray snappers. 



After about seven of the blue ones had been 

 tested, however, not one of the eighty or more 

 gray snappers could be induced to seize an- 



other, and even after three weeks they declined 

 to touch blue ones even though these later 

 "baits" had no tentacles in their mouths. 



Thus apparently warning coloration seems 

 not to exist in nature among these fishes, yet it 

 may be established artificially with ease, and 

 perliaps more wonderful we see that something 

 like associative memory can be retained for at 

 least three weeks by the Florida gray snapper, 

 a fish, by the way, whose reputation among an- 

 glers, is that of being the cleverest among all 

 the denizens of the reefs. 



FOOD VALUE OF THE SEA MUSSEL. 



Development of the Sea Mussel Industry 



IN the United States. 



The long neglected culture of the sea mus- 

 sel on the coasts of the United States is a mat- 

 ter of sincere regret to men who have learned 

 in Europe to appreciate this delicate and sub- 

 stantial sea food. Our foreign born citizens 

 from French and Italian shores have introduced 

 it in the markets of New York and San Fran- 

 cisco, but its use by our native sea board popu- 

 lation has not yet begun. The American bon 

 vivant finds the mussel served by foreign chefs 

 a delectable morsel. But on the private table 

 of the American it is unknown. 



Filippini, in "The International Cook Book" 

 gives three recipes ; but there are other and sim- 

 pler methods of cooking mussels of which prob- 

 ably steaming and serving in the shells is most 

 familiar. 



Professor Irving A. Field, of Clark College, 

 has made enthusiastic and conscientious efforts 

 to interest Americans in the development of a 

 great natural resource. He has presented two 

 papers before the American Fisheries Society 

 that are worthy of wide circulation. In the 

 one, published in 1910, he deals with the food 

 properties and commercial value of sea mussels. 

 He contrasts the large and ready market in 

 Europe with the nearly unknown and very re- 

 stricted use in the United States, principallj^ in 

 New York City. In his second paper, "Trans- 

 actions of the American Fisheries Society, 

 1913," he gave an interesting historical sketch 

 of sea mussel culture which dates from the early 

 13th century at Aiguillon on the western coast 

 of France. It was accidentally discovered that 

 young sea mussels attached themselves to stakes 

 driven into the salt marshes for other jDurposes. 

 It was observed that these mussels grow rapidly 

 and were of superior quality to those which 



