472 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
THE BLUE CRAB. 
The writer believes that the introduction of the common crab (Callinectes hastatus) 
of the Atlantic Coast to the waters of the Pacific States would not only prove a valu- 
able addition to the food resources of the region, but would be very acceptable to the 
fishermen, dealers, and consumers, and would serve as an important substitute for the 
large crab ( Cancer magister) now so extensively utilized on the west coast. 
It can not be said that the introduction of the small eastern crab is demanded by 
any present scarcity of the native crabs. The principal reason for its transportation 
would be to afford a new variety of cheap food and to offer a new object of capture to 
the fishermen. It would also doubtless serve an important function in supplying food 
to various fishes, and also in furnishing, as on the east coast, an important bait in 
line fishing. 
Of the relative merits of the east and west coast crabs as to food value, there is 
room for little difference of opinion. The smaller species has a much more delicate 
and palatable flesh. Another reason why the importation of the blue crab may be 
desirable is the advent of large numbers of visitors from the Eastern States, to whom 
their native soft-shell and hard shell crabs would prove very acceptable. 
As to the feasibility of transplanting crabs from the Atlantic to the Pacific sea- 
board there can be little question. The introduction could doubtless be accomplished 
with facility. The crabs are fully as hardy as the lobster and are more easily handled. 
The adaptability of the waters of the Pacific Coast to the crab will at once suggest 
itself to anyone who will study the thermal and other physical conditions of the two 
coasts. On the Atlantic seaboard the blue crab ranges from Cape Cod to Mexico, 
and it would thus seem to be better suited to the waters of California than is the 
lobster. 
