Shell-fish industries . ed size. Oyster culture would be quite impossible over a largepart of the northern field if starfish were left to them-selves, yet to keep down their numbers is a very dififi-cult task. When not excessively numerous in shallowwater, the culturist sometimes takes up the larger in-dividuals one at a time on a spear. The real damage is done when starfish move togetherin great numbers, as they often do. Traveling but ashort distance each day, a great army of them may creepover a bed, utterly destroying it. In deep water their Enemies of the American Oyster 155 presence may
Shell-fish industries . ed size. Oyster culture would be quite impossible over a largepart of the northern field if starfish were left to them-selves, yet to keep down their numbers is a very dififi-cult task. When not excessively numerous in shallowwater, the culturist sometimes takes up the larger in-dividuals one at a time on a spear. The real damage is done when starfish move togetherin great numbers, as they often do. Traveling but ashort distance each day, a great army of them may creepover a bed, utterly destroying it. In deep water their Enemies of the American Oyster 155 presence may not be discovered until the damage is is thus necessary for the culturist to exercise eternalvigilance. The number of these enemies that must bedealt with in certain localities may be imagined when it isstated that one oyster planter in six years removed fromhis deep water beds ten thousand bushels of them. There is considerable variation in their number, due tochanges in environment. It sometimes happens that a. Buniy- ii|(iiiiii«»\ Ctii!.!)!;. ????I /«™w Fig. 39.—Tangle of frayed rope orpieces of cotton waste used in col-lecting starfish on oyster from a figure published bythe U. S. Fish Commission. year or even more may pass without the appearance ofgreat numbers. At another time they become veryabundant. The removal of these pests has always been a very 156 Our Food Mollusks difficult matter, and no entirely satisfactory method hasbeen devised for accomplishing it. Several devices havebeen tried and abandoned. Two chief means of dealingwith them have been employed. In one case everythinglying on the bottom is removed by dredges. Ordinarilythis is too expensive, unless oysters thus dredged are inneed of culling. The second method is one recom-mended by the United States Fish Commission, and isuniversally employed; indeed, the oyster industry couldhardly exist in New England without it. Naturalists had for many years used a large mop madeof frayed ro
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