402 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
tried exploring about the headwaters of Mystic River, and after a few weeks had 
gathered a number of pearls, one of which he is reported as having sold for $500, and 
two others are estimated at $400 apiece. From the other end of the State, along 
the Shepaug River, in Litchfield County, comes an account of the success of Mr. Arlo 
Kinney, of Steep Rock. One fact here is of special interest. Mr. Kinney, instead of 
destroying every Unio that he examines, uses pincers, after the German method, to 
open the shell sufficiently to see if there is any valuable pearl, and then returns it to 
the water. If only this method, so simple and so reasonable, could be introduced 
throughout this country, enormous waste and destruction could be easily prevented. 
Crowds of seekers, however, attracted by the reports, have proceeded, here as else- 
where, in the usual reckless manner of wholesale destruction. 
In New York the pearl- hunting 
excitement has also been felt as a 
result of the prominence given in the 
papers to the Arkansas discoveries. 
The principal scene of activity has 
been in the northwestern angle of 
the State, along Grass River and its 
affluents, one of the streams that 
drain from the Adirondacks into the 
St. Lawrelice. The central point has 
been the town of Russell, St. Law- 
rence County. Two years ago Mr. 
M. C. Rowe, of that place, on opening 
a mussel for bait, while fishing in 
Frost Brook, a tributary of Grass 
River, found a pink pearl as large 
as a pea. This he sold at a good 
price, and has since made several 
hundred dollars by collecting pearls 
water telescope m use. thereabouts. During the past sea- 
son there has been great activity, and multitudes have been pearl-hunting. 
The streams here are clear and rapid, and those who make it a business bave 
special outfits for the work. A rubber suit is worn, consisting of boots and long 
trousers in one piece, with which they wade up the stream, each having slung about 
his neck a perforated tin-pail. To the face is strapped the “ water telescope,” i. e., a 
light square wooden box, open above and shaped to fit to the face, and closed below 
with a piece of glass. The pearl-hunter walks in a stooping posture, with the lower 
end of the box immersed, so that he can see the shells lying on the bottom, and take 
them with a “spud,” or pole carrying at the end a pair of spring clasps or nippers. 
