SEATTLE folks are perking up and taking interest. The movement to establish a municipal aquarium for the rare fish of Puget sound is gaining headway. All over the city persons are heard to express admiration for the enterprise of The Star, which is daily making discoveries of untold value to science in the course of its piscatorial research work. First there was discovered the “salvager sucker,” then the “cable cleaning croppie.” And now come letters from two gentlemen who seem to nave unearthed—if unearthed be the word—two curiosities in the fish line that are absolutely new. Here are their letters. Read ’em. And here, too, is a sketch by Vic of one of the creatures, the “opium pipe fish.”
    Editor The Star: I read with interest the letter in The Star about the salvager sucker. Salvagers, however, are very common, not only in Discovery bay, but also In the South Seas and West Indies. A fish much more useful than the salvager is the Gushington Slimeback, a highly colored fish of the Bainbridge Island shallows. The slimeback has a mouth like an alligator and a tusk like a hippopotamus. It can consequently lift two loads at once—one in the mouth and one on its horn—and is therefore more useful than the salvager.
    What Is still more astonishing is the silmeback's powers of discernment. It can be taught to distinguish objects. All you have to do is to pin the picture of what you want on the end of its nose, and it will return with the desired object. Like the salvager, this fish is also held by a string tied to its tail. I have had a gushington slimeback for many years as a pet, and I find it more useful than a diving suit, for It can go to any depth. — J. GILL KNETT.