136 PREVENTION OF EAVAGES BY STAK-FISHES. 



stomach and the appearance of the rupture. Any medical man who 

 would wish to revive the practice will find the prescriptions carefully 

 gathered together in Link, who, however, does not appear to have put 

 much faith either in the medical or gastronomical virtues of star-fishes ; 

 yet, conceiving it necessary to find some use for them, according to the 

 manner of his times, he tells us they are of use to man, not because they 

 serve as food to him themselves, but because they feed the fishes, and the 

 fishes feed him, adding, ' miror hinc et in providentia divina sapientiarn.'" 



In spite of his belief, however, I do not know any fishes that feed 

 upon the sea-stars, except the cod. Connecticut men say that the coot 

 (Fulica americana) is fond of young starfishes, as many as fifty of which 

 have been found in the crop of a single bird. It is not unlikely. 



The qnestion following a knowledge of the facts which have been 

 given above is, What can be done to prevent, or at any rate lessen, the 

 ravages committed by the star-fishes upon oyster cultivation? This is a 

 very hard question to answer. The boundless tracts of the outer sea har- 

 bor them beyond any hope of extermination by us, and all operations 

 must apparently be confined to the small localities occupied by the oys- 

 ters. Here, again, the expense involved in ridding one's property of the 

 pests, makes it a question whether it were not more profitable to let them 

 alone. Possibly this might be the case in individual instances; and prob- 

 ably it has been found so, and acted upon almost universally up to the 

 present. The result is a colonization and increase of star-fishes, which for- 

 sake the single localities to which they were once confined and devastate 

 a whole neighborhood. Every man now suffers through his neighbor's 

 neglect as well as his own. 



The oystermen who own contiguous beds should combine during the 

 summer to dredge the star-fishes all off a certain district, and divide the 

 expense or labor equally among them all. Such combined and persistent 

 work, when the plague first appears, will certainly clear them off; and 

 when once they are got rid of, they will not be again troublesome until 

 the following season, and then in less numbers. There is no more reason 

 why the star-fishes cannot be so reduced in Long Island Sound that they 

 shall not be harmful to the oyster-beds, than there is why the Canada 

 thistle cannot be- kept down in the three shore counties of Connecticut. 

 It is merely a question of steady labor intelligently applied. 



But I have discussed this matter of prevention more fully in my report 

 to the Tenth Census upon the Oyster Industries (chapter v., page 231), and 

 need not dwell further upon it here, where it is scarcely appropriate. 



