SHELL AND PEARL FISHING ON THE MISSISSIPPI 19 Geological Survey. He has also been a constant contributor to Science and the American Naturalist, always making his points in strong, clear English and with a simple and forceful style. The same powers of mind which make him a great naturalist give him success as editor. He has had in charge the Bulletin and Memoirs of the American Museum since 1887, has edited the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club for eight years and for a period of twenty-eight years has been editor of The Auk, the official publication of the Ornithological Union. It has been the quiet, continual and thorough work of Dr. Allen as editor of The Auk and in the council of the American Ornithological Union that has proved one of the most important factors in keeping alive in America the interest in ornithology aroused at the time of the publication of Coues' Key to North American Birds. Although perhaps not conscious of the fact, Dr. Allen is a great force in the American Museum. At the head of the department of mammalogy and ornithology for twenty-seven years, neither the possible official power of the position nor the necessary routine have kept him from continual and arduous scientific investigation and from giving with great broadmindedness equality of opportunity to those working with him; as a result the department has set an example as a producing power and enforced the truth emphatically set forth in the lives of eminent naturalists heretofore that definite scientific knowledge, the summation of which constitutes the basis for the world's progress, can be gained only by single-mindedness of purpose that is forgetful of self. SHELL AND PEARL FISHING ON THE MISSISSIPPI By W. P. Herrick Dr. Herrick is engaged in a study of the fresh water pearl clams and the pearl fisheries of the United States, especially in such questions as the number of pearls secreted relative to hardness of the water, and to distortion of the shell and other diseased conditions of the clam. He spent several months at the Mississippi pearl fisheries during the past summer and has recently been making use of the Museum library in his work. He has engaged to supply the new Shell Hall with materials for a display illustrative of the pearl industry.— Editor. A YOUNG workman in Germany, who had served an apprenticeship in making buttons from bone and from the marine mother-of-pearl, received a present of some shells said to have come from the rivers of America. These lay in a dusty corner of his shop until finally he determined to work up a few into buttons. He found the material desirable, and the price of marine shell being high, started at once for the United States, taking with him his small foot-power machine. On arrival he worked his way slowly westward examining the rivers for shells. One day a man watching his work said, "You ought to go to the Mississippi where 20 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL you can get those shells by the cartload." He proceeded to the Mississippi. There shells were gathered, a few buttons finished and taken to Chicago. A little perseverance found a market at a good profit, but reluctance at handling the small output of one workman. A partner was enlisted, more machines purchased, workmen personally instructed and the button industry was established - which has made the city of Muscatine on the Mississippi. This was about 1890. The young man, Mr. J. F. Beopple, is now government shell expert at Fairport on the Mississippi, and the present size of this fresh water pearl and button industry although difficult to state exactly is estimated at about seven million dollars annually. The surroundings, the element of chance in pearl fishing, and the enormous growth and kaleidoscopic changes in the button industry all lend romance to the work. The Mississippi at Fairport is about a mile wide, with large islands and baylike sloughs, and although the winding channel is twenty feet deep, there are flats which may appear when the river falls a few feet and considerable areas of country of such level that it may be covered quickly by a corresponding rise. The water is very muddy (with about one hundred and ten parts hardness to the million) and has an average current of three miles an hour increased after a heavy rain and often emphasized by the wind, while the spring ice sweeps away any ordinary dock. Under these conditions the methods of obtaining the shells are three: Wading proves effective in shoal water or when the river is low; raking from an anchored skiff is a method much used in deeper water by skillful fishermen, although laborious and impossible when the river is rough; while dredging, "drifting with a brail," is probably the method most generally in use. 66 The "brail" or crow foot dredge is dragged astern and the so-called "mule," a three or four foot square of boards with a wooden handle on top, is dropped flatside to the current off the bow of the boat and held in this position by ropes to give power and steadiness to the craft. When the down river side of the bed is reached, both dredge and mule are hauled aboard, and the clams removed from the hooks of the dredge. Then the fisherman "chugs" with his motor or rows to the up current side and the drift is repeated hour after hour. The mollusks lie partly buried in the mud at the bottom of the river and the hooks of the dredge brush between the shell's two open valves, which snap shut in a grasp so tenacious that their edges are often broken in getting out the hooks. An average of three or four hundred pounds daily is considered a good haul. The work may be carried on by a single fisherman near his home, or by one or more families which camp on the river bank, shifting location when the catch proves poor. After being brought to the shore the mollusks are steamed that the valves may open and the meats may be more or less separated from them. Then the shells are thrown into a pile and the meats are put on the sorting SHELL AND PEARL FISHING ON THE MISSISSIPPI 21 board for the search for pearls. There are so-called "pearlers" who do not steam the clams but open them with a knife, but these are few. Admitted that in "cooking out" pearls occasionally drop to the hot bottom of the pan and are burned and that some experts believe that the steaming injures the lustre of the pearl, the former rarely happens in reality as the finest round pearls are apt to be imbedded in the flesh of the body of the mollusk, and as regards the latter, the verdict is by no means unanimous. Both fishermen and shell buyers agree also that the shells which have a market value fully equal to the pearl find are cleaner and better when "cooked out" than when "soured out" or when cleaned with a knife. The work of going over the meats by hand for pearls is often done by the women of the family while the fisherman is making his next day's catch. Locally the name of "pearl" is reserved for the pieces which have a complete skin and are symmetrical, those spherical being called round pearls, those flattened button pearls - "balloon," "pear-shaped" or "drop" as the case may be. The white pieces are now especially in demand for ladies' ear studs, and thus when perfect and of fine lustre are of considerable market value. Other forms though typical and not attached to the shell, are called "slugs." There are almost limitless varieties of these in size, shape, color and lustre, and they have many names such as "nuggets," "points," "wings," and "angel wings." The ordinary slugs are usually sold to local or traveling pearl buyers, bringing from two dollars and a half to forty dollars an ounce. if Thus the raw material is obtained. When several tons of the shells have been accumulated, they are sold, usually to a representative of the nearest button-cutting factory. Good shells during the past summer were bringing about twenty-three dollars a ton. It is considered that the shells give the necessary wage, the pearls furnish the fascination and give the profit there is any. This summer one pearl was found valued at nineteen hundred dollars, while there are quite a number of fishermen in the vicinity who have worked many years without finding one worth fifty and are still expecting the perfect pearl. EXHIBITION OF THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM SOCIETY By Bashford Dean T Photographs by Dr. Fritz Bade HE New York Aquarium Society held its second annual exhibition at the Museum during early December, its first annual meeting having been held in the New York Aquarium. It was evident that the exhibition appealed to people of many kinds, quite beyond the technical circle of aquarists-which is already large. Thus there were 22 22 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL many young visitors, who came and observed the fishes critically as a result of their first experiments in aquarium keeping; on the other hand, there were professional zoölogists who came to see some of the fishes alive which they had known only on the shelves of museums. The aquaria were nearly a hundred in number, mainly small ones, balanced (still water), attractively displayed, showing besides fishes, rare aquatic vegetation and a number of curious invertebrates. Popular exhibits there were, of course, in number: gold fishes of many forms-"fantails," "telescopes," "comets," "fringetails," some admirable specimens both Chinese and Japanese, including some of the variety which is short and heavy of body and blunt of tail, especially prized by the Japanese fanciers. Then there were paradise fish (Macropodus) of all sizes, which is sib to the famous gourami, the most delicately flavored of all East Indian food fishes, as well as to the Bengalese Trichogaster common in the Calcutta market here also shown living. But the feature of the exhibition was the number and interest of the exotic forms represented, creatures which one is apt to know only from pictures in textbooks. Thus there was the water butterfly, Pantodon (African), said to be a "flying fish," although judging from the habits of the fish in the aquarium, the stroke of its filmy tail does not allow it to spring far out of water. There was Mastacembelus, an Indian "eel" which is not an eel. There was an Indian Ophiocephalus which can live beneath sun-baked mud and which under ordinary conditions breathes partly by means of a "lung," and resembles outwardly the American ganoid Amia, which, by the way, is also more or less of an air breather. There were several genera of cichlids, perchlike fishes, tropical American, and of characinids which replace the tribe of carps in Africa and South America, and include the most formidable fresh water fishes in the world. There were tropical catfishes which are rarely seen out of their native waters, among them Macrones (East Indian) with bright bands of color and exaggerated "feelers," also a South American Dorad, its body half covered with armor, and its fully armored cousin, Callichthys, which is probably the most eccentric of all catfishes. There were forms whose habits of reproduction are extraordinary, like Gambusia, Girardina, Pacilia, which bear living young, and were exhibited beside their youngsters. Finally, there was not lacking the pla-kat, or Malayan fighting fish, Betta pugnax, a veritable aquatic game-cock reared for shows of fish-fighting which in Siam draw throngs of spectators. Especial credit in bringing together many of these exotic and rare forms is due to Mr. Isaac Buchanan, an amateur who devotes much time to the study of aquarial fishes, and it was similar interests which led Mr. Richard Dorn, president of the society, to organize the present display. The society itself is made up mainly of widespread German organ- The present exhibition demonstrates again, and in East Indian catfish (Macrones), bright colored and with long feelers an attractive way, the value of keeping an aquarium, not as a hobby merely, but also as a means of studying the habits and development of many aquatic forms which would otherwise be inaccessible to naturalists. It even puts within range of its owner some of the large questions which these forms illustrate, as for example the variation of aquatic animals and plants under artificial conditions, and the way in which these variations are passed on to the young, questions which lead far into the field of Darwinism. Nor can we leave out of account the experimental value of the aquarium, in testing how fishes can be reared, and what are the best conditions for breeding them, questions which touch practical fisheries. The success of the present exhibition leads one to hope that similar displays will be held annually. |