cannot be regarded as anything but a wasteful process even when temporary conditions permit it to compete with other sources of these products, as during the world war. Recent experiments in Sweden have suggested that dry distillation will yield, not only the potash and iodine formerly sought, but numerous other products, including illuminating gas, acetic acid, methyl alcohol, formic acid, acetone and creosote.

Since, however, man prefers to harvest the plant life of the sea indirectly, those animals which feed directly on the plants are able to increase with less waste and at a more rapid rate, considered in total populations, than those which feed on other animals. Most of our food fish, for example, feed on smaller fish; these in turn feed upon small crustaceans and the latter eat the microscopic plants and detritus, so that in many instances the fish we eat are removed three or four steps, perhaps more, from the original food source. This is more significant than may seem apparent at first glance, since it involves an enormous waste. Before any organism can grow, the energy needed merely to live must be supplied, and by the time a crustacean is eaten by a minnow, or a minnow by a food fish, it will, on the average, have consumed a quantity of food several times its own weight. These facts are well brought out in the diagram and statistics of Petersen, previously quoted. The edible shellfish, however oysters, clams, mussels and the likefeed for the most part directly on the marine plants and this is one reason why the extension of the shell fisheries represents so much promise.

The carp is one of the few edible fish which lives directly on vegetable food. In the United States most people do not, it is true, regard this species as particularly edible but since it is largely eaten in Europe and raised for the purpose, it will serve as an excellent example of what such a fish may produce. The statistics on this fresh water fish are particularly valuable because they are not subject to the sources of error which hamper attempts to measure the productivity of the sea. The amount of fish produced in carp ponds has been calculated as ninety-five pounds on the average each year per acre. Brandt calculated the productivity of Kiel Harbor as eighty-nine pounds per acre annually, but the latter figures are much less exact. The average yield of beef on good land in the United Kingdom is seventy-three pounds per acre annually. The beef is much superior in food value, pound for pound, but it is also much more costly to produce. There are many inlets of the sea where conditions are almost as readily controllable as they are in the fresh water ponds. Such, for example, are the shallow enclosed sounds on the Atlantic coast of the United States

Vol. XV.-30.

Great South Bay in Long Island, Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds in North Carolina and parts of Chesapeake Bay. These enclosed areas are at present producing a great deal of human food, but only a small part of what they might produce under proper management. On a larger scale, the Baltic and North Seas of Europe are similar regions where, if not sea culture, at least an intelligent harvesting of the seas' resources is yearly becoming more possible because of the careful studies which have been made by the English, German and Scandinavian biologists, whose countries are chiefly interested in the matter.

Before we can expect to make substantial advance we must have a much more comprehensive knowledge of the ecology of the sea than we have at present. For example, we may class the animals of the sea roughly into those which are valuable to man and those which are not, but when it comes to determining to which of these classes any particular species belongs, difficulties arise. The difference which direct and indirect utilization of food makes has already been pointed out. Some useful species which get their food at second or third hand, that is, by eating other animals, prey largely on forms that would not otherwise be converted into human food; some, on the other hand, eat species that are good human food. Thus, drumfish are good human food, but they may at times consume large numbers of oysters which are still more valuable to man than they are. Starfish, which are utterly useless forms, also attack oysters, but this case offers no perplexities. A very large number of animals are useless in the sense that they occupy space and consume food which might otherwise be utilized by useful species. The snails, sponges, sea anemones and some of the mussels of our northern waters belong to this group. However, in the case of most marine animals only a complete account of their life histories, together with the life histories of their associated forms. is sufficient to enable us to know whether they are, in the long run, valuable or harmful from the human standpoint and whether it would be wise for us to attempt to overturn the balance which we find them maintaining in nature.

Another phase demanding careful study is the effect on the marine life of the waste materials which are constantly being poured into our waters, especially in the vicinity of our great cities. So far as industrial wastes and oil are concerned, the effect is wholly bad, and the questions at issue are: How much of this discharge is necessary? How can the pollution best be restricted to the necessary minimum? The sewage problem is more complex. The addition of large amounts of rich nitrogenous fertilizing material to our waters could be made a great source of wealth if it were

properly utilized, and even under our present hit or miss methods. it results in a marked enrichening of the marine flora in favored localities. On the other hand, the danger of disease transmission is so well recognized and is illustrated by so many striking examples that large areas of sewage-polluted waters are eliminated as sources of food in whole or in part. How to utilize this valuable asset without endangering public health or spoiling the recreational value as well as the food value of our coastal waters is one of the biological problems of our day.

Finally, it may be reiterated that shellfish culture offers the most immediate hope for effective utilization of the sea's resources. The economy of direct utilization of plant food by these animals has been emphasized. Most shellfish, like land crops, stay where they are planted. Even the scallop, which can swim about after a fashion, is restricted in its movements and could readily be controlled. Oyster culture is already a great and important industry but it has not nearly approached its possibilities. Clam culture is still in an embryonic stage and scallop culture has as yet merely been suggested. When some of the problems confronting the establishment of these industries have been solved we may hope to have acquired additional information concerning the ecology of the sea which will help us in our approach to the more difficult problems of the future.

It is recognized that there are numerous economic phases involved in attempts to increase the productivity of the sea, but consideration of these would be beyond the scope of this paper. When social and economic forces demand additional food at reasonable prices, the biologists must be prepared to show where and how this may best be obtained.

OUR GREAT ROVERS OF THE HIGH SEASTHE ALBATROSS

IN

By Dr. R. W. SHUFELDT

FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

N going over the literature devoted to ornithology, we find that but a small part of it refers to the birds known as Albatrosses. Alexander Wilson, the famous American ornithologist, never once mentions any of them in his work; and Audubon, who had splendid opportunities to study them in nature as well as in museums and private collections, touched upon those he had heard of, or studied skins of, in the lightest possible manner. In volume VIII of his work in my library, I note that he devotes but a single paragraph to the description of the genus (Diomedea). Apart from the description of characters, he gives but three and a half lines to the Yellow-nosed Albatross; a few lines more to the Black-footed Albatross, and four lines and a half to the Dusky Albatross-the last-named being the only one he figures. He was indebted to a "Mr. Townsend" for skins of all these species, the latter having collected them "not far from the mouth of the Columbia River."

As to the Black-footed Albatross, Audubon says: "It is clearly distinct from the other two described in his work, namely, the Dusky and the Yellow-nosed; but I have received no information respecting its habits. Not finding any of the meagre notices or descriptions to which I can refer to agree with this bird, I have taken the liberty of giving it a name, being well assured that, should it prove to have been described, some person will kindly correct the mistake." He named it Diomedea nigripes, the Blackfooted Albatross, and it is the name we have for the species to-day.

In the last A. O. U. "Check-List" (1910), in addition to the bird just mentioned, we recognize four other species as belonging to the North American avifauna, namely, the Short-tailed Albatross (D. albatrus); the Laysan Albatross of Rothschild (D. immutabilis), and the Yellow-nosed and the Sooty Albatrosses (T. culminatus and P. palpetrata). These are all Pacific Ocean birds, though the Yellow-nosed species is said to have "accidentally occurred in the Gulf of St. Lawrence."

Personally, I do not recall ever having seen an Albatross in