404 
BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
The fishery : 
18. Method of taking the mussels. 
19. Description of apparatus used in taking mussels and in opening the shells 
20. Methods of extracting the pearls. 
21. Treatment of pearls when found. 
22. Utilization of mussels after extraction of pearls or after opening. 
23. Principal occupations of mussel fishermen. 
24. Statistics of fishery : Fishermen, boats, apparatus, pearls. 
25. Comparative statistics of pearls, etc. 
26. Period when pearl-fishing was of greatest importance in district. 
27. History of origin and growth of fishery. 
28. Exhaustion of mussel-beds ; causes, rapidity. 
29. Do exhausted beds become replenished, and in what time? 
30. Is State protection of the beds desirable or necessary ? 
To this circular 123 responses were received, besides a few that were so abso- 
lutely indefinite and obscure as to possess no value. The replies came from the 
following States — more than half of them from Tennessee, where of late the greatest 
activity has prevailed. 1 
Alabama 1 
Arkansas 3 
Florida 1 
Illinois 3 
Indiana 5 
Iowa 6 
Kansas 3 
Kentucky 2 
Maryland . 2 
Massachusetts . . 1 
Michigan 1 
Mississippi 1 
New York 4 
Ohio 1 
Pennsylvania 1 
Tennessee 74 
Texas . 6 
Wisconsin 8 
These responses contain a large amount of valuable information. Many of 
them are furnished by persons not at all in the habit of writing, but who are evidently 
very familiar with the facts through much experience and observation. The general 
results are quite clear as to some of the points, and conflicting as to others; this last 
condition is easily seen to be due to local differences in the very wide area covered, 
and to the fact that the species of Unios and, to some extent, their habits are different 
in the different sections of the conutry. A great desideratum seems now to be a 
scientific determination of the particular species referred to in these reports and 
designated by vague or fanciful local names. 
To the first inquiry, relating to the nature of the stream and the character of the 
bottom and of the water, only four of the papers failed to respond more or less fully, 
though only a part of them include answers to all the three points in the question. 
In summing up the results, the first, second, and third points may be considered 
together, with the following result: Thirty-nine papers report the stream as swift, and 
7 as slow; 31 give the water as clear, and 2 as muddy; 15 mention it as shallow, and 6 
as deep, and 22 refer to it as being more or less “hard.” A number of the answers 
are less easily classified, describing different streams in the vicinity, or the same 
stream at different points and different seasons, as varying in depth and in the rate 
of flow. As regards the bottom, many papers report several kinds, as sand or gravel, 
or both, on a rock bottom, or areas of mud with rock or sand, etc. The most definite 
statements may be grouped as rock, 35; gravel, 76; sand, 49; mud, 32, including a 
few references to clay. 
The general indications from these data are quite plain, to the effect that the 
shells are chiefly found in rather rapid streams, in which the bottom would naturally 
1 It will be noticed that all these responses were sent before the pearl excitement of 1897, in 
Arkansas and adjoining States, described on pp. 395-401, above, in which some new and additional 
aspects were developed. 
