58 REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 
for instance, the halibut and salmon. This subject of depletion and 
the character of fisheries conservation work that a state or country 
should do is handled rather fully in a paper by W. F. Thompson which 
will appear shortly in Fish Bulletin No. 2 of the Fish and Game 
Commission, 
This state has seen the commercial extinction of the sturgeon and 
Sacramento perch, and now their sale is prohibited. We have seen the 
depletion of the salmon, shad, striped bass, tom cod, California halibut, 
crab, shrimp and abalone, and they have all been given more or less 
adequate protection. We have several species such as albacore, yellow- 
tail, sea bass, barracuda, sardine and herring, which need to be care- 
fully watched. But we have many excellent varieties of fish which are 
little known and, therefore, little sought after by the people. The use 
of these fish should be encouraged, not only to remove the strain on the 
varieties now used to the limit of safety, but in order to increase the 
productivity of the fisheries. Our sea fisheries are new and in many 
respects still in a rather primitive state. The public takes very slowly 
to new varieties of food, especially food fish, and it is not to be won- 
dered that they have not developed a desire for these new varieties. 
These varieties can be obtained in large quantities and placed on the 
market more cheaply than the well-known varieties, for if they were in 
demand the catch of the fishermen would be more stable and fish now 
thrown away or not sought after would be brought in. It occasionally 
has happened that there has been a ‘‘fish famine’’ when the little 
known varieties could have been obtained in large quantities if there 
had been a market for them. One instance of this happened last sum- 
mer in southern California. The markets for some time were almost 
bare of fish while immense schools of mackerel, a very excellent fish, 
were along the coast, close to shore, where they could have been caught 
even by a novice. 
To bring about the use of these little known varieties, it will be 
necessary to repeatedly and continuously tell the people about them 
and at the same time see that they are presented to the people in a 
fresh and wholesome condition. The United States Bureau of Fish- 
eries has recognized this as necessary and has been doing excellent 
work along these lines. It has succeeded in introducing several new 
varieties of fish. While the public is to blame for the comparatively 
high price of the two or three varieties which they demand at the 
exclusion of the others, much could be said about the primitive and 
often filthy manner in which the fish for the fresh markets are handled 
py the fishermen and the wholesale and retail fish dealers. Reforms in 
the manner of handling of fish must be brought about coincident with a 
campaign to popularize the use of the little-used varieties, if the fresh 
