The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-07-08
lob-Bobbing Is
 The Latest Sport
 For Conservation
Aimed to Annihilate De-
 structive Blobs, Who Are Eating All of Our Salmon

Washington, July S-Did you ever go bobbing for blobs? No, this is not a new game nor is 1t something that is likely to be taken up by all sportsmen-it is merely a little diversion highly and warmly ad- vocated by the Smithsonian Institu- tion. for the conservation. of few natural resources
 There has been so little conversation regarding conservation lately that the Smithsonian evidently thought that the matter needed stirring up, for they have just issued letter concerning the extermination of the blobs and advocating this extermination as a highly patriotic and an eminently proper pastiIne
 But, before the bIobs can possibly be erdicated. the public will have to be told what they are for 1t Is doubt ful if there are many persons, outside of the Smithsonian, who would recog- nize one if they met it on the street. That 1t is something live is rather evident from the title of the Institu- tjon's letter, "The Determination of the Blob". but whether the would-be euterminators should tempt it with peanuts, lure it with bird seed or smother it in pop corn is not men, toned
 So, the dictonary being the natural haven of refuge when one desires to find a definition, the "b's'' are search ed until the word ''blob" is reached. But even then look of wonderment and astonishment is likely to settle on the searcher's face, for the defini- ton there is weird and wonderful.
 1t is almost enough to produce a parody on Oliver Herford such as the following:
 Fl I never hope to meet one,
 But this I know, hope, trow, I'd rather meet than eat one"
 Here is Webster's definition. lifted bodily:
 Blob Something blunt or round, a small drop or lump of something vis cid. a drop. a bubble. a blister. A small fresh water fish Uranidea Rob-. insonD, the miller's thumb. ?
 So there is very little use trying to dope out from the dictionary exactly what is a blob There is no escape from it. the Institutions letter must be read. A study of the learned dis sertation shows that the next to the last bet in the dictionary is the right one to play and that the blob spoken about in the article in question is a fish which has the 4pernicious habit of swallowing several salmon for break fast, few more for lunch and adding some to the collection when dinner time comes around. Therefore says the Institution, they should be exter-s minated.
 Blobs, say Messrs. Bean. and Weed of the Institution, are not particular how they eat their prey. Head or tail first-it is all the same to them, and they eat an average of six a day. This, for a fish which is some twelve or fifteen inches long, is going some. Some of the blobs eat so many sal mon that they choke themselves to death and the Bureau of Fisheries is. not troubled with exterminating them When it is noted, however, that 31 1000 of the pernicdous blebs were caught and killed in twenty days on the Helm Bay Stream, it would not seem that the Bureau of Fisheries would have much trouble in getting rid of them.
 But, they say that there is great need for an active movement against the salmon eaters, so the public is asked to "swat the bloh'', just as they are desired to "swat the fly.
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