44 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



in Canoe Bay, but not every day was so successful. In the course of 

 the season's operations we caught several thousand crabs. 



From Canoe Bay we moved over to Dolgoi Harbor, in the Pavlof 

 Island group, and a week later over to Mist Harbor, Nagai Island in 

 the Shumagins, for a similar length of time. From these bases fishing 

 trials were made in all directions out to sea, among the islands, and 

 up into all promising bays on various types of bottom and in varying 

 depths, but no king crabs were discovered in these areas at this time 

 of the year except for a few isolated individuals in Cold Bay and 

 adjacent Lenard Harbor. Therefore on November 28 operations were 

 transferred to Alitak, west end of Kodiak, where several hundred 

 cases of king crabs had been canned by an earlier though unsuccessful 

 venture during the first half of 1933. Except for Olga Bay, which is 

 tributary to Alitak Bay. our luck was no better than that encountered 

 elsewhere since leaving Canoe Bay. In Olga Bay we not only 

 got several hundred king crabs of the familiar reddish species 

 {P. camtschaticus) taken so far, but also between three and four dozen 

 deep blue ones representing a second species of Paralitlwdes, P. 

 platypus. The meat of the latter when canned is indistinguishable 

 from that of the former, in either appearance or taste. 



So that we might discover something regarding the movements of 

 the crabs, or at least the date of the arrival of a considerable body 

 of them here at Alitak. while the expedition as a whole worked 

 farther to the eastward, Pat Pertuit, and Jim Scrivner of the 

 Tondcleyo's crew were left behind. Quarters were made available at 

 Alitak and at Olga Bay by the Pacific American Fisheries and the 

 Alaska Packers Association, respectively. 



Our last fishing trials of the current season, which was to terminate 

 on December 1, were made over on the north side of Shelikof Strait, 

 east of Kukak Bay, our last base, between November 15 and 20. They 

 returned about 70 crabs, including in the very last haul the largest 

 and heaviest crab taken, a 16-pounder, just about 10 inches in width 

 of shell, or carapace, and approximately 56 inches wide over the 

 laterally extended legs. 



The wealth of bottom life picked up by a commercial otter trawl 

 is a revelation to those who have never seen one in operation. On 

 more than one occasion, Canoe Bay, Pavlof Bay, and elsewhere, we 

 picked up close to a ton or more of marketable sole and flounder ; at 

 other times, in Olga Bay, all of a thousand pounds or more of good- 

 sized shrimp, chiefly species of Pandalns. Now and then we would get 

 a solid haul of purple starfish, and once in Shelikof Strait over 300 

 7-inch ocean scallops (Pectcu caurinus), which furnished us a memor- 



