REPORT OF BOARD OF FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONERS. 41 
and was not worked up. Under a liberal construction of the law, 
jewelers and other manufacturing establishments were permitted to 
work up the old stock, which is now practically exhausted. Unless- 
some amendment is made to the present law it will result in putting 
out of business a number of manufacturing establishments employing 
white labor in this State. 
The real purpose of the law was aimed at the aliens, Japanese and 
Chinese principally, who were taking them by the ton without regard 
to size by the aid of diving suits, removing the meat from the shell in 
the water, bringing it ashore, where it was dried and shipped either to 
China or Japan. We believe the use of diving suits should be per¬ 
mitted, as there are apparently inexhaustible beds of red abalones along 
our southern coast, which can not be profitably taken in any other way, 
and the law should be amended so that both black and green abalones 
can be taken and possessed at any time, the former not to measure less 
than twelve and the latter less than seventeen inches around the outer 
edge of the shell, but prohibiting absolutely the shipping of dried 
abalones or unmanufactured shells out of the State. Such a law would 
not only permit the canneries to operate, put up their catch and dis¬ 
pose of it, but would furnish a sufficient stock of shells of all kinds for 
use of local manufacturing establishments, whose combined demands 
would not be one twentieth part of that made in shipping dried abalones 
and shells out of the State. Legislation along these lines w r ould be 
fair, just, and, we believe, produce the desired effect. 
CRAWFISH, OR SPINY LOBSTER. 
In our nineteenth biennial report and again in our preliminary report 
of 1907-08 we recommended that a close season of two years be estab¬ 
lished on this, one of our most important shellfish, which began to show 
signs of possible extermination. The matter was presented to the legis¬ 
lature, and after much discussion a law was enacted establishing an 
indefinite close season, but permitting crawfish measuring not less than 
nine and a half inches, but taken without the waters of this State, to be 
sold in our markets under restrictions which were to be prescribed by 
the Board of Pish Commissioners, and provided further that the expense 
of such inspection and marking “ shall be borne by the person or per¬ 
sons importing such lobster, or crawfish. ” It was represented to the 
legislature that crawfish were to be found in great abundance in Mexican 
waters, and a company had been organized to propagate them exten¬ 
sively on the coast of Lower California. This law has worked satis¬ 
factorily. The only port of entry for Mexican crawfish is San Diego, 
where a representative of the Fish Commissioners meets every incoming 
shipment, and checks up and marks each individual specimen. This 
plies the markets of Los Angeles and other southern cities and permits 
