Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/391

 Popular Science Monthly

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���The Imitation Sturgeon of the South

The paddlefish frequents the bayous of the Mississippi River, canned and sold for sturgeon. In its fresh state it is eaten by the

��miles long and twenty-five miles wide. The number of fish to meet this untimely end was one billion, five hundred million.

This phenomenon was so amazing that the Bureau of Fisheries decided to inquire into the matter and the result of the find- ings indicated that the fish probably had died of chill. The tilefish, like the cod, dwells at the bottom of the sea, but as it comes of a tropical fam- ily it cannot withstand the cold as can the cod. There was evidence that the Gulf Stream had receded; as it moved off shore, the tilefish lying at the bottom

were no longer protected by its warmth and found themselves in chilly water, which proved too much for them.

A few years after the disappearance of the tilefish the Gulf Stream was found to be gradually approaching the coast. In 1892, the warm water of the Gulf Stream flowed over the bottom of the New Eng- land coast and in the summer of that year the Fisheries schooner, Grampus, caught a few tilefish. But for ten years not a single fish had been found on the old grounds, although painstaking search had been made all during that time.

"What's in a Name?"

The Dogfish Becomes

the Grayfish

As an example of "What's in a name?" take the dogfish. As long as this excellent food fish was called by that unattractive name the public would have none of it. Now that

��it is known as the grayfish it is beginning to be accepted.

The grayfish is a fine looking fish, very trim and sporty with its clipper-build and smooth shining skin. It is wonderfully quick in its movements, which is necessary for a creature with its pirat- ical propensi- ties. It weighs when grown from five to fifteen pounds, the average for adults being seven pounds. The hide looks scale- less, but is in reality cov- ered with fine, sharp parti- cles very rough to the touch. The skin is used for polishing metal, ivory and wooden

��negroes, who are very fond of it

articles, as it is much like emery cloth.

The liver produces an oil which finds a

ready market in the arts.

The utilization of these by-products

makes it possible for the canner to supply

the fish to the consumer at an unusually

low price.

The wholesome grayfish has been eaten

and enjoyed by the people living on the

shores of the Mediterranean since some long distant period lost in the shadows of an- tiquity. Doubtless many an American so- journing in Europe has smacked his lips over a dish of savory grayfish and has wondered why we have no native fishes quite so delectable.

The Wastefulness of California

On the Pacific coast the people are just as wasteful and extrava- gant as they are on the Atlantic, when it comes to refusing fine flavored

���Our Newest Deep-Sea Food Fish

The tilefish should prove to be very profitable to the fisheries, because if the fresh fish are caught in such quantities that their sale in the fresh state would not pay they can be salted and smoked like finnan haddie, which, when smoked, they resemble in flavor. If these fish are ever smoked extensively a profitable by-product would be found in the sounds, or swimming bladders, as they are valuable for the production of gelatin or isinglass

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