Landing the Paddlefish.
Landing the Paddlefish.
New industry developed in the lower Mississippi, catching sturgeon-like fish for its roe.
By permission of Dr. Louis Hussakoff.
"I've got one," he cried. "I've got a big one!"
Every one present crowded round with cries of congratulation.
Slowly the newcomer opened his hand and revealed a large pearl almost twice the size of the gem Colin had been examining, and, therefore, if of equal purity, worth eight times as much. The finder handed it around, and in course of time it reached the boy, who scrutinized it carefully.
"Isn't it a beauty?" the newcomer cried. "And just on the very last day! I haven't a penny left in the world, and I sold my old farm to come up here. It's been getting harder and harder for me every day, and we had decided to give it all up. I hadn't a bit of hope left, and now——!"
The cottager whose pearl Colin had come down to inspect, slapped the farmer on the back, and without a trace of enviousness—for he himself had been lucky—joined in his delight. The farmer's wife had followed him more sedately, and she came in to share the general enthusiasm.
But Colin sat silent.
Over and over again, with a childish persistence, the farmer told how he had sold his farm, how he had come up with every penny he owned, how, little by little, it had all oozed away, and how in disgust he had decided to sell his boat, which would give him just enough money to get back to Missouri.
"But now, Mary," he said, "we can go back and get a better farm than we ever had, and we'll have a house in the village so that the children can go to a good school, and you'll have lots o' friends, and pretty things about you. It's been hard, neighbors, I tell you," he said, looking round; "but the luck has turned at last."
Colin said not a word, but kept his eyes fixed on the table. His host, the mussel-gatherer, whose stone he had been examining, noticed this, but the newcomer was boisterous in his joy. He babbled of the wealth that was his, until if the stone had been a diamond of equal size, it would not have sufficed to have financed his dreams.
But the boy with the instruments on the table before him, said not a word of congratulation or delight. He had only seen the pearl for a moment, but he knew.
With hearty and jovial hospitality, the farmer invited every one in the room to come and stay with him as soon as he was settled down. He would show them, he said, what real life was like on a farm.
Suddenly he stopped.
"Mister!" he said, in an altered voice.
Colin, sitting alone, still beside his testing instruments, did not look up.
"Mister!" he said again.
In spite of himself the boy raised his eyes. Do what he might, he could not keep the sorrow out of them, and those of the finder of the pearl met his fairly.
The room was full of people but it grew still as death.
The woman clasped her husband's arm and gave a low moan. He touched her shoulder gently.
"Mister," he said again, with a humbleness that seemed strangely gentle after all his bluster and brag, "will you look at this and tell me what you think it's worth?"
"I'm not an expert," the boy said hastily. "I couldn't judge its value. You ought to take it to some one that knows all about these things."
"I can see what you think," the farmer said with a pitiful, sad smile; "you think it isn't worth much. Is it worth anything at all?"
Colin took the discolored pearl and looked at it closely. He put it on the scales and weighed it carefully, measured it, and scrutinized it as closely as he could in the lamplight, but he knew himself that these were devices to gain time. The pearl showed all too clearly a flaw that would make it valueless. Every one waited for his verdict. He was conscious that his voice was a little shaky, but he answered as steadily as he could:
"I'm afraid, sir——"
"Well?"
"I don't believe, sir——"
"That it's worth anything at all?" the farmer interrupted.
A solemn dignity, the accompaniment of great trouble, came to the man's aid and gave him strength. "Thank you," he said; "I understand."
He looked around with a troubled glance and saw the far smaller but more valuable pearl that his neighbor had found, which was still lying on the table beside the instruments. A strong shivershook him, but he made no other sign. He turned to Colin.
"I see that it's no good," he said, "but I shall keep it just the same. If you have finished with it——"
Colin stood up and placed the pearl in his hand.
"Please take it to some one else right away," he said. "I couldn't sleep—suppose I were wrong!"
The old farmer looked at him gravely.
"No man would do as you have done and say what you have said, unless it was so clear that he couldn't help but know," he replied. He turned to the neighbors. "I'm afraid," he said, "I have in part spoiled your pleasure, and," he added, with a twitch of the muscles of his face, "made a fool of myself, besides. Come, Mary, we'll go home."
The others pressed forward with words of sympathy, but the stricken man paid no heed and passed out of the door. Colin sat heavily back in his chair staring moodily at the instruments, his heart sore within him, but he knew he could have done nothing else. Yet the thought of the old farmer's sorrow was powerfully before him,and he had to keep a strong grip on himself to keep from showing an unmanly emotion.
Outside the little cottage could be heard a murmur of voices, as the old farmer tried to comfort his wife, while inside the house no one spoke lest he should seem careless of the grief and disappointment of those who were still within hearing. Suddenly a third voice was heard outside, speaking excitedly. Once again that tense clutch of suppressed emotion permeated the room and Colin, with his heart in his mouth, looked up. No one moved. Outside the voices ceased.
Then, through the open door, rushed a boy about twelve years old, muddy from head to foot, but with his two eyes shining like lights from his grimy face. The mussel-gatherer recognized instantly the farmer's son.
"What is it, John?" he asked.
"I was goin' over some shells father hadn' opened, after he'd found that other pearl, an' I got this! Father he says the other one's no good an' that this isn' likely to be any better! But I don' know! It looks all right!"
He glanced down at the object in his hand.
"Father said it was no good," he repeated, a little less certainly; "but I don' know."
He held out his hand and passed the pearl to the mussel-gatherer, who glanced at it hastily.
"Mr. Dare!" he said excitedly.
Colin looked up and caught his glance, then tried to take the stone. But his hand shook as though he were in a violent fever, and the mussel-gatherer placed it on the table beside his own, in front of the boy. Clear, flawless, and of fair size, it gleamed like a star of hope before them all. A moment's examination was enough. Leaping from his seat Colin seized the pearl and rushed out of the door.
"It's real, sir; it's real!" he cried. "And will do all you said!"
The old farmer never looked at him. He turned his face toward the stars and reverently removed his hat.
In spite of his interest in the pearl work, Colin began to feel the strain of the steady and persistent grind required from him by Dr. Edelstein, who himself seemed absolutely untiring. At the beginning of July, moreover, the weather turned wet, and the rain poured down steadily, not heavily, but soaking the ground thoroughly. For a week or so no notice was taken of the rain, other than the discomfort it caused, but one day Colin overheard one of the head workers saying to the superintendent:
"It looks as though we might have trouble unless there's a let-up to the rain soon!"
"I'm afraid of it," was the reply, and the grave tone of the answer surprised Colin; "and I hear that it's raining in torrents in Montana."
"We're safe enough, I suppose," was the comment.
"Yes," the superintendent answered, "buthundreds of other people are not. Floods always catch some of them."
This was an idea that had not occurred to Colin. The word "flood" called up a host of graphic ideas, and a flood on the Mississippi, the largest river in the world flowing through a populated country, seemed a serious matter. He spoke of it to his friend of the paddlefish investigation.
"Yes," the other answered, "there have been many scores of lives lost and many millions of dollars swept away on the 'Father of Waters,' and I doubt if the time will ever come when the flood danger will be at an end. Remember that the Mississippi River Valley is the only water outlet for two-thirds of the entire United States."
"It's protected by levees, too, isn't it?" Colin queried. "At least, during the flood on the Mississippi, you always hear of the levees breaking or just going to break."
"They give way very seldom now," his chief replied, "and that means wonderful engineering, for there are sixteen hundred miles of levee, the river banks being built up clear from Illinois to the Gulf."
"Then where are the floods one hears of so often?"
"There are bad floods on the Ohio," was the reply, "and there is always danger when a flood tide comes down the Mississippi. You see, if part of a levee does give way, or as they say, if a 'crevasse' comes, thousands of square miles are inundated, hundreds of people made homeless, and the property loss is incalculable. All the land around the lower part of the Mississippi is just a flood plain which used to be covered with water every year. That land has been rescued from the river just as Holland has been rescued from the sea."
"Then there is danger every year?"
"There is always danger," was the reply, "and the levees are carefully patrolled. But during the high water of early summer there is more danger, and a week's rain means trouble. We're going to have a bad flood this year unless the rain stops soon."
"But the river isn't rising?"
"Not yet. Why should it? It isn't the water that flows directly into the Mississippi, but that which floods the tributaries that causes disaster. From the Rocky Mountains on the one side to the Alleghanies on the other, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada—nearly every drop of rain thatisn't evaporated or used by plants has to be carried to the sea by the Mississippi."
"It seems like a big job for one river bed," Colin agreed. "But how can it be made safer?"
"The way is easy," was the answer, "but costly. If big reservoirs are built on all the headwater streams so that—no matter what the rainfall may be—only a constant amount is allowed to flow out of these reservoirs, then floods will be avoided, there will be plenty of water for irrigation, and a steady depth of water in the channel will extend navigation that is now stopped during low-water periods. Besides which, it will make the Mississippi fish question a great deal easier."
"I don't quite see what it has to do with the fish!" the boy said.
"Supposing five thousand square miles of land are flooded. When the water goes down, at least half that amount of land is still flooded, though no longer connected with the river, but forming shallow lakes and pools. These are all full of fish. As the pools dry up, everything that is in them dies, and millions of food fish are lost."
"But how can we stop that?"
"The Bureau of Fisheries does a great deal to stop it," was the answer, "and if this rainholds—though we are all praying that it won't—you'll probably have a chance to see. The Bureau seines as many as it can of those bayous and pools and lakes to save the fish and return them to the river. If a couple of men can save several thousand fish a day, isn't that worth while? Think of a farmer who could get a thousand bushels of wheat in a day! And that's about the proportion of food value."
"Well," said Colin, as he was leaving the laboratory to take up another piece of work he had been told to do, "I don't want a flood to come, of course, but if there is one, I'd like to have a chance to see how the Bureau handles that sort of fish rescue work."
The reports the next morning were no more encouraging,—the Weather Bureau reporting heavy rain in Montana and the Milk River in flood. Fortunately the weather was fine in the eastern States, but a flood on the Milk River usually means a Missouri River flood, and that takes in nearly two-fifths of the Mississippi basin. Around the Iowa station the rain still poured heavily. By the end of the week more hopeful reports came from the west. As the southwest had escaped entirely no serious trouble was expected, but in the regionnear the laboratory the rain was coming down in torrents and the Wapsipinicon and Cedar Rivers were overflowing their banks.
Climbing up the Wheel.
Climbing up the Wheel.
Device used on the lower Mississippi to haul in big nets for the Spoonbills.
By permission of Dr. Louis Hussakoff.
Biggest Fresh-Water Fish in America.
Biggest Fresh-Water Fish in America.
Pulling out the source of domestic caviare, the Spoonbill.
By permission of Dr. Louis Hussakoff.
The neighboring stations at Bellevue, Iowa, and North MacGregor, Iowa, were reported to be preparing for collecting black bass, crappies, sun-fishes, yellow perch, pike, buffalo-fish, and catfish as soon as the water should recede and leave the fish stranded in lakes and pools. One Sunday, Colin took the power-boat up the river and had a chat with the men at Bellevue regarding the nature of the work. He found that the flood dangers were small above the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and when an opportunity arrived to do some fish collection in the overflows, the boy thanked the superintendent of the station, and said he would rather keep to the mussel work. This, a day or two later, came to the notice of Dr. Edelstein.
"I haf observed," his chief said, "that you haf been taking much more interest lately in your work. Why is it?"
"I have been trying to do a little investigating on my own account," Colin said confusedly, "and there's a lot of fun in working things out all by yourself."
"Haf you any objegtions to telling me what you haf been gonsidering?"
"Not at all, sir," Colin answered. "I'd be glad to show you, if you'd care to see. I've been trying to find out the cause of the difference in the secretions of the mussels that have very bright pearly shells and those that are dull. But I haven't got very far along yet."
"Fery good subject," was the reply; "let me see your notebooks."
Colin brought him a number of small notebooks filled with records of experiments that he had been doing in the evenings, and over some of them the gem expert smiled.
"You haf done a great deal of unnecessary work," he said, "work that I gould haf told you had no bearing on the results, but it isn't time wasted at all, for you will haf learned more that way than if I had told you. And you haf two series of eggsperiments that are very useful. If you only had time to make the series gomplete, the information would be of value to the Bureau."
"Would you include them in your report, sir, if I completed the series?"
His chief leaned back in his chair.
"Seriously," he said, "I think your eggsperiments on the garacter of the secretions are very interesting. You don't know as much organic gemistry as you should, but if you will take a few suggestions from me, I think your work would be worth publigation."
"You mean in your article?" asked Colin.
"No," was the answer, "in your own."
"My article! You mean that I should write it up?"
"Why not?"
"But I don't know enough!"
"If we all waited until we thought we knew enough about a subject," the scientist answered, "there never yet would haf been a line written. Don't gif any opinions, Golin, for they will not be worth much, nor any gonglusions, because you hafn't reached any. But make a simple statement of what was the problem you had, how you went about it, and the results of your eggsperiments so far. Remember, too," he added, "that a negative result is often of just as much value as a positive, for it solves the problem to the eggstent of eliminating that partigular fagtor."
"And you really think I should write it up, Dr. Edelstein?"
"Of gourse."
"But would the Bureau take it?"
"That is for the Gommissioner to say, and he would decide on its merits. If it is not too long—just two or three pages, perhaps, I feel sure he would aggsept it. If you like I will go over the manuscript and advise you about it."
"Would you really do that for me?" asked Colin.
"Very gladly," was the reply; "but you will need a series almost twice as large as you haf now in order to make it of any value."
"Indeed I'll complete the series, Dr. Edelstein," Colin said. "I'll work at it every minute of spare time I can get."
From that moment time seemed to Colin all too short—the days appeared to fly. He was up long before breakfast getting out specimens both for himself and his chief and till late in the evening he would sit over his microscope working out the details of his experiments. The expert, who had realized earlier in the summer that Colin was restless, now saw that the reason was that none of the work he had been given to do possessed an individual note, and perceiving—as did every one—the enthusiastic nature of the lad, he helped him in every way possible. Thus it came about that before the day set for the reopening of college, Colin had finished the series of experiments which had been thought necessary, and had sent the manuscript of his article to Washington. And in the very first batch of letters that he received on his arrival at college was one from the Commissioner accepting his report and promising publication in the Bulletin.
Colin ever afterward declared that this was a great stimulus during his college work. He had done well the first year, but his late training under Dr. Edelstein and the spur of research had taught him how to concentrate upon his studies. He did not neglect the out-of-doors life, however, and he still had the swimming championship to defend, but every minute that he was not actively at play he was hard at work. Idle minutes were scarce. Nor did he fail of his reward. Just before the spring examination he received a letter from the Bureau of Fisheries telling him that his application for the next summer had been accepted and assigning him to duty at Woods Hole, the station where he had long desired to be.
Immediately after the close of the college year, and a few weeks spent at home, Colin betook himself to Washington, where he received the necessary credentials. As still a week intervened before the time of the opening of the laboratory, he spent several days in New York, visiting the American Museum daily and assisting his friend, Mr. Collier, with whom he had gone to Bermuda. The sea-garden exhibits were all completed and were among the museum's most popular cases, and the curator was engaged in preparing some exquisite models of the Radiolaria, those magical creatures of the sea, which are so small that they can be seen only with a powerful microscope, but which look like living snow-crystals, although a thousand times more beautiful. Some were already installed in the museum, but a large series was planned.
On his arrival at Woods Hole, Colin found work in the hatchery division of the station almost at an end. Hundreds of millions of cod, pollock, haddock, and flatfish fry had been hatched from eggs and planted in favorable places for their further development, and tens of millions of lobster fry as well. A few of the hatching troughs were in use, but most of them had been emptied and prepared for the work of the biological department of the Bureau, to which the station was given over during the summer months.
Colin found that he was not unknown to the director, who, being especially interested in mollusks, had read the lad's paper on the mussel-shells. Accordingly he was quite heartily welcomed and set right at work.
"You will take charge of the fish-trap crew, Dare," he was informed, the director's quick, snappy eye taking in the lad. "I suppose you know enough about fish to tell the various species apart?"
"I'm not sure, sir," said the boy, "but I think I know most of the common kinds. That is, theoretically, Mr. Prelatt, through studying them. I have never done any fishing of consequence off the New England coast."
"You can haul the trap at slack water this afternoon," the director said. "I will ask Mr. Wadreds to go with you. He knows every kind of fish that swims and more about each one than three or four of the rest of us put together."
"What will be my duties, sir?" asked Colin. "I don't want to trouble you, but if I am to take charge of the crew I ought to know what I have to do."
"The trap is to be hauled daily," was the reply, "except when the water is very rough. Youwill be given a list of the needs of the laboratory for experimental purposes, and as far as possible, you will fill those needs. Sometimes you may have to assist in the collecting trip besides, as for green sea-urchins and the like; or perhaps you may have to draw a seine for silversides and small fish. Sometimes you may be needed to haul some of the lobster pots, because we shall have two men at least doing research work on lobsters. Again, you may have to get mussels for some work that is being done on shellfish for food. There will be two other students working with you in maintaining the supply of specimen material, under the direction of the head collector."
"Very well, Mr. Prelatt," the boy replied, "I'll see that things are kept up as far as possible. Am I to come to you for information as to where to go for special fish and so forth?"
"Mr. Wadreds knows more about that than I do," the director said; "he can usually tell you just where to find anything you're after. You'll soon find it easy, because collecting narrows down to a few species. The M. B. L. boat does collecting, too, and sometimes each party is able to help the other."
"What is the M. B. L., sir?" asked Colin.
"The Marine Biological Laboratory," was the reply, "which owns all the land on the other side of the street, just as we do on this. It is a summer college supported by a number of leading universities, to which graduate students come for courses in biology and marine life. There is some research work done also, and at the present moment Professor Jacques Loeb is doing some wonderful work over there on fish hybridization. We are entirely distinct organizations, one being a summer school and the other being a government marine hatchery with a biological laboratory attached. They have their own boats and we have ours, but we grant them the privilege of using our wharves, and there is a great deal of friendly cooperation between the two."
"You spoke of sea-mussels, sir," suggested Colin.
"Well?"
"I was wondering, Mr. Prelatt, whether I would have any time aside from the fish-traps and the collecting, and if so, if I might work with the man who is going to take that up."
The director shook his head.
"No," he answered, "there are two men working on that subject together. Besides which, you will have but very little time, at least for a couple of weeks. Then, if you feel that you would like some research work, I'll tell you what I want done."
Colin soon found that the demands upon him by the chief of the collecting staff not only were very heavy, but that they required considerable ingenuity. Frequently he would be asked for starfish and it would be necessary to go to a well-known shoal at some little distance, perhaps in thePhalaropeor other of the government boats. There they would dredge with 'tangles,' a tangle being an iron frame with yards and yards of cotton waste dragging behind in which the spines of sea-urchins and the rough convolutions of starfish easily become entangled. Occasionally more distant trips, such as those to the Gulf Stream, would be made on theFish Hawk, the largest of the Bureau's boats, named like all the others, after sea birds.
The hauling of the fish-trap, usually done in boats from theBlue Wing, never palled in interest. Every day the visit to the trap had the expectant thrill the miner finds when prospecting in a new stream. There was always the excitement ofpossibly finding new species, true gold to the scientist.
The Blue Wing at the Government Fish Trap, Woods Hole.
TheBlue Wingat the Government Fish Trap, Woods Hole.
Photograph by C. R. W.
"I've found at least three new species," said Mr. Wadreds to him one day, "right out of the same trap you're haulin'. And sometimes, when there has been a long-continued storm and the wind's settin' in from the southeast, the traps have jest had numbers o' tropical fish."
"Why should the wind bring the fish?" asked Colin.
"They come up with the weed, lad," was the old collector's reply. "When a storm rises the big masses o' gulf weed are broken up an' drift on the surface before the wind. A great many semi-tropical fish live on the weed an' the little creatures that make their homes in it, an' so they come followin' it away up here. Then we find them in the traps and by seinin'. We've caught butterfly fish an' parrot fish in the seines up here several times."
"We get menhaden in the trap principally now," the boy said; "why aren't they used for food? They look all right. Are they poisonous, or something?"
"Oily," was the reply; "an Eskimo might like 'em, but no one else. But the menhaden fisheryis valuable just the same, for there's more oil and better oil got every year from menhaden than there is whale oil. Nearly all fish manure is menhaden, too. But they're not a food fish."
"Nor are dogfish," said Colin, "but I see that the M. B. L. mess table has them once in a while. We get lots of mackerel and other varieties that are good eating. I wonder why they eat dogfish?"
"Partly to try it out," the collector said. "A dogfish is a shark, as you know, and mos' people don't like the idea of eatin' any kind o' shark. But it is a waste to have a good article o' food entirely neglected by the public an' so the Bureau and the M. B. L. have tried usin' dogfish on the table as an experiment to get an idea of its value as food."
"It tastes all right, too," said the boy. "I had some yesterday."
"O' course it does, but the name is against it. Both dogfish and catfish are good eatin', but there is a prejudice against 'em, because people don't eat cats an' dogs. But they have been canned an' sold under various names, such as 'ocean whitefish,' 'Japanese halibut,' an' 'sea bass.'"
"They have a vicious look, though!"
"They are vicious," was the reply, "but you mustn't believe all you hear. Why, at the last International Fishery Congress a speaker told of a plague o' dogfish which not only attacked lobsters, but swallowed pots an' all."
Colin looked incredulously at his friend.
"That's the story," the other said; "you don't have to believe it. I don't."
"But after all, a dogfish is a shark, and aren't sharks the most vicious creatures o' the sea?"
"I shouldn't say so," the old collector answered. "I reckon the moray is really more vicious. He's always huntin' trouble. A shark is always hungry, that's all. Fishes have different kinds o' tempers, you know, an' often it's the smallest creature that's the meanest."
"Common fishes?"
"There isn't anythin' that swims that's meaner than a 'mad-Tom,' an' they're frequent in all the rivers o' the middle west an' south. A 'mad-Tom,'" he continued in answer to the boy's questioning look, "is a small catfish with spines. Most boys in riverside villages have their hands all cut up by 'mad-Toms.' O' course there are scorpion-fish an' toad-fishes in tropical waters, an'their poison will cripple a man for a while, but there's no fish that's fatal."
"I thought there were lots of poisonous things in the water," Colin said, "jellyfish and other things like that."
"Well," replied the collector, "a jellyfish can be tolerable poisonous. The Portuguese man-o'-war, pretty enough to look at when it floats on the water, with long streamers o' purple threads flowin' out behind, is the only thing that I ever heard of that killed a man."
"A jellyfish? How?"
"It was all his own fault," was the reply. "It was down in the Bahamas, off Nassau, as I remember. The sea was just alive with jellyfish, an' this young fellow that I'm tellin' about, he swam around a good deal an' once or twice had run into a jellyfish without gettin' stung. There's only some o' them that sting."
"I thought all of them did a little?"
"No, only a few. Well, this chap knew enough, I reckon, to keep away from a Portuguese man-o'-war usually, but either he had got reckless or didn't think of it. Some of his friends shouted out to him to take care, but he laughed back, tellin' them they were foolish to believe oldstories, and to show that he didn't care, in a spirit o' 'dare' he dived plumb under the jellyfish. But he misjudged his distance an' came up clean in the middle of it an' the stingin' hairs just closed all over on him."
"There are hundreds of them, too, aren't there?"
"Thousands of stingin' filaments in some o' them. He gave one wild scream an' went down. When he came up and his friends were able to grasp him he was paralyzed as though he had suffered an electric shock, an' before they could get him to shore his body had broken out in a violent rash. The doctors couldn't do anythin' for him an' he died three days later."
"Have you ever been stung?"
"I know enough to keep away from a jellyfish," was the blunt rejoinder; "but I had a nasty time with a torpedo once."
"The electric ray?" queried Colin. "That fish that looks like a small sea vampire only it hasn't a whip-like tail?"
"That's it," said the older man. "It was when I was just a youngster, I was haulin' in a net, when my feet slipped from under an' I went headlong into the middle o' the net, and a torpedo landed onthe back o' my neck. I reckon he must have shocked the spinal cord or something because I was fair paralyzed for an hour or two. You're sure to get one yourself," he continued, "because they use torpedoes for research work a good deal, but a shock in the hand or on the arm passes away in a few minutes, so that you don't need to worry about that. The electric eels—which are not eels at all, though they look like it—are the worst of all, but since they live only in South American rivers, I suppose they won't bother you much."
"As long as I don't find any in the fish-trap," said Colin, laughing, as Mr. Wadreds nodded and went on his way, "I won't mind, and I'd just as soon not have to handle any dogfish that swallow lobster-pots as a habit, but if I do I'll come to you for help."
All in all, Colin thought Woods Hole the most interesting place in which he had ever been. Unlike other summer resorts, a spirit of earnest vigor pervaded the little settlement. The houses nestled in the wooded low hills behind the town, and though so near the sea, flowers could be made to grow luxuriantly, as a famous and beautiful rose garden bore witness. To the southeast, over a spit of land that was little wider than a causeway, the road ran to the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Bureau of Fisheries station, holding their commanding positions overlooking the harbor. The great government pier smacked of the stormy sea, for it was used also by the Lighthouse Service and huge red buoys lay in dozens on it awaiting their hour to warn the tempest-driven mariner of the perils that lay below them.
Nearer in, where the pier was severed from the shore, the opening being crossed by a short swing bridge, was a small inclosed inner harbor where lay the launches and boats of the two laboratories. Upon the shore itself was a stone-walled tank, set between the Residence building and the Laboratory proper, and therein large fish which had been caught in traps or elsewhere, and which were too big for the indoor tanks, flitted as dark shadows within the pool. Smaller fish were in the Aquarium in the first floor of the laboratory opposite the wide space where stood the serried rows of hatching troughs.
Here were many most interesting fish—among them that constant delight of the landsman, the puffer, which, when disturbed, rapidly inflates itself, rising to the surface of the water until it becomes apparently so large a mouthful that itswould-be devourer is fooled into believing the morsel too big to swallow. Then, the danger removed, the puffer releases the gulped-down water and swims away. Here also were strange fish, like the eighteen-spined sculpin and the sea-robin, walking over the bottom on three free rays of each of the pectoral fins. Upon the top story of the same building were preserved in a rough museum various other strange forms, not all from Woods Hole waters; the remora, or sucking fish, that fastens on sharks and becomes a constant passenger enjoying a free ride, specimens of which were often in the Aquarium; the deal-fish, which alone among its tribe has a long slim fin projecting upwards from the tail almost at right angles to it; the blenny, whose facial expression has caused it to be known as the sarcastic blenny; the graceful sea-horse, who swings on seaweed with a prehensile tail like that of a monkey—and the male of which hatches the eggs instead of the mother, and not the least extraordinary, the three-cornered trunk-fish whose front view is the most unfishlike apparition possible. These and hundreds of others Colin learned to know from the collections.
It was with great delight that Colin heard ofthe presence of his friend Mr. Collier, who was working on the plans for a model of Bryozoa, and who had with him his staff of glass-workers and modelers. The boy found it hard to tear himself away from this laboratory and struck up quite a friendship with a Japanese colorist on the staff. Also, he was fortunate in meeting and knowing Mr. Cavalier, the artist of animal life, and from him the boy learned a great deal of the picturesque and æsthetic elements of the life which he painted and modeled with such surpassing skill. Scores of other workers, writers, and scientists of all kinds had rooms in the wonderfully interesting workshops of Woods Hole.
Hatchery and Laboratory Building, Woods Hole.
Hatchery and Laboratory Building, Woods Hole.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
Residence and Fisheries Bureau Headquarters, Woods Hole.
Residence and Fisheries Bureau Headquarters, Woods Hole.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
Beyond the laboratory building was the wharf to which the two steam yachts attached respectively to the station and the M. B. L. were tied up. Beyond that again was a second pier, that of the Revenue Cutter service, where lay, with banked fires, one of the guardians of American seas, a man ever on duty at the wireless receiver. Beyond the pier the land curved to the point opposite the Elizabeth Islands, while in the narrow strait or 'hole' between, the tide for all Buzzards Bay surged out or in as the ebb and flow compelled.
As captain of the fish-trap crew and active in collection, Colin had the run of both laboratories and the day always seemed too short for him. Every investigator's work was a matter of personal interest to him and he talked 'research' all the day long, though too tired to dream of it at night. Nor did he forget his swimming, and at the beach in Buzzards Bay he swam a mile or so each day, the admiration and the envy of all the M. B. L. students. But Colin speedily won their friendship, for he never hesitated to help other swimmers in every way he could, even teaching little tricks of style that were all his own and which had gone far to win him his championship.
As Director Prelatt had promised, Colin was given an opportunity to keep some research work in hand, although he found—as had been foretold—that he had but little time for it. The director was engaged upon a most interesting and important investigation, which, like all those that were in progress at the laboratory, had a strong economic value. This was the study of the life history of the whelk.
"At first sight," the director said to him, when explaining the problem, "it does not seem as though the biology of a sea-snail were a matter ofmuch importance to the country, but as a matter of fact, to a great extent the oyster industry—which reaches millions of dollars annually and gives employment as well as food to thousands of people—depends upon that very thing."
"Just how, Mr. Prelatt?" inquired Colin.
"All creatures have their own special enemies," the director answered; "and everything is so equally balanced that there are enough oysters born to keep up the supply in spite of the attacks of the whelk, or oyster-drill as it is termed. When man comes on the scene, however, and commences to dredge the oysters, the combination of the market and the drill together is too much for the oyster-beds and they soon become depleted."
"That's the way it is with fish, too!"
"With everything," was the assenting answer. "Now there are two ways to overcome this condition. One is the way in which we handle the same question with fish—by artificially hatching millions more eggs every year than would have been hatched during a state of nature. The other is by attacking the enemy of the oyster and thus enlarging the chances of those that hatch naturally. The latter we can't do with fish."
"Why not, sir?"
"Because the enemies of fish are numerous and free-swimming," was the answer, "and also because fish produce an enormous amount of eggs. Oysters do also, but fertilization is so largely a matter of chance that but a few of the tens of thousands of eggs ever really have a chance to become young oysters. You can help that in two ways, one by preparing the ground so that everything is made easy for the young oysters to have a chance, the other by thinning them out or transplanting the young oysters or 'spat' as they are called, improving and enlarging the beds."
"That ought to help settle it, I should think."
"It is not enough. Enemies also must be kept at bay."
"I should think the oyster, in its tough shell, would be practically free from enemies," remarked Colin.
"On the contrary, it has a large number. A great many kinds of fish, such as skates, for example, will eat oysters, and many owners of oyster-beds have surrounded their holdings with an actual stockade of stakes."
"Like the pioneers had against the Indians?"
"Just the same," assented the director."Drum-fish are hostile on the Atlantic coast, and on the Pacific a very substantial stockade is required against the invasion of sting-rays. More destructive still are the starfish."
Colin stared at the director in surprise.
"Starfish!" he said, "those little starfish? Why, they're soft and they haven't any teeth or anything to crush an oyster shell with."
"They're small and they're soft and they haven't any teeth at all," said the director, "but starfish cost the oyster industry at least five million dollars a year."
"But how?" queried Colin; "I don't see how they can work it."
"What is a starfish?"
The boy thought for a moment.
"It's an echinoderm," he said, "generally with five arms, that lives only in the sea, has a simple stomach, and feeds on the minute organisms in the water."
"There you're wrong," said the director. "It lives only in the sea, that's right enough, but you haven't proper regard for a starfish's powers of digestion. It feeds on mussels, oysters and other shellfish. Can it swim?"
"I don't think so, sir," said Colin, after a moment's thought, "it crawls."
"How?"
"I don't know, Mr. Prelatt."
"By thousands of sucker-like feet on the under side of it," he was told. "So you see it can crawl to and over an oyster-bed."
"But even so, wouldn't an oyster shut tight at the approach of danger?" suggested Colin.
"That doesn't make any difference to the starfish," was the reply, "he'll open the oyster."
"How, sir?"
"What keeps an oyster closed?"
"The muscle, sir, because when it is dead it flies open."
"Very good. Do muscles grow tired?"
"Mine do," said Colin, smiling, "and I suppose the muscles of oysters are the same way."
"Exactly. Now what happens is this. The starfish crawls along until he finds an oyster which he thinks will suit his taste. As he crawls near or on it, the oyster closes up tight. The starfish—taking plenty of time—fastens himself to the shell, having two of his 'arms' on one shell and the suckers of the other three 'arms' attachedto the other shell. Then the starfish starts to pull."
"But isn't the oyster stronger?"
"Much stronger," agreed the director, "but the starfish doesn't know enough to quit. The pull he exerts is not so powerful but it is relentless and unceasing and no oyster muscle can resist it for more than a few hours. Presently the shell gapes open. The starfish lumbers over and commences to feed, other starfish often coming to enjoy the feast."
"And are there starfish enough to injure the beds?"
"Myriads of them. A starfish is not easy to kill, moreover, because if any of the arms are cut off he will grow a new one."
"How do the oystermen fight them?"
"By catching them in tangles. The snarled cotton waste does no harm to the oyster, but, as it is pulled over the bed, picks up hundreds of starfish and sea-urchins. Up-to-date vessels engaged in that work have a vat of boiling water on deck, into which the tangle is plunged when it is pulled up from the bottom. This kills the starfish and is a great gain over the old system of picking them out of the tangle by hand.
"But the worst of all the oyster's enemies," the director continued, "and the one on which I am working, is the oyster-drill. At least eighty per cent of the possible oyster crop is destroyed by this sea-snail. This creature, usually about half an inch long, crawls on an oyster—usually a young one—and with a rasp-like tongue files a hole in the shell, through which it sucks the juices out of the oyster. The only thing that keeps the oyster-drill in check at all is that as soon as it is big enough for a younger drill to climb on its shell, it is apt to suffer the same fate. It is a case of reversed cannibalism, the stronger falling to the weaker."
"What can be done to stop it?"
"Nothing so far," said the director; "that is my chosen problem. Because the drill prefers the thin-shelled mussel to the thicker-shelled oyster it has been suggested that mussels should be planted outside oyster-beds, so that the drills would stay there. But the cure would be worse than the disease, for the mussels would spread over the oyster-bed and the drills with them, since they would have so excellent a breeding ground. No, the problem is still unsolved, and the people of the United States are looking to the Bureau ofFisheries to solve it. The Bureau has given it to me. That's the fascination of this work, that on your own toil and your own skill and ingenuity a factor of world-wide importance may depend."
"Perhaps——"
"What is it, Colin?"
"It just occurred to me, sir," the boy answered, "that perhaps some parasite which would prey on the drill might be found."
"It might—but I have as yet found none."
"Or perhaps," Colin again suggested, "some chemical which would unite with lime might be put into the water so that the oyster shell might be poisonous to the drill, but not for food, because we eat the oyster and not the shell."
The director laughed.
"That suggestion is new, at least," he said, "but I don't think it would work because this is a marine question and the water changes continuously. There must be some solution, there's always a way of doing everything, and some one will find it out. I'm going to stick at it till I do, that is, when I'm not engaged on other Bureau work. But I'm always glad of suggestions, and when you can help me in any way I'll let you know."
"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Prelatt," Colin answered; "I'll be glad to do anything I can."
The boy had a fertile brain, and, before a week had passed by, a line of experiment suggested itself to him in connection with the oyster-drill problem and he explained it to the director.
"To work that out properly would take several years!" the latter said tentatively.
"I thought it would," said Colin, "but perhaps some one else could carry it on, and the work ought to be done, anyway."
"You have the right idea," the director replied; "it's the problem, not the man who solves it. Now," he continued, "I have a surprise for you. Dr. Jimson, who has been working on swordfish for some time, is anxious to try and capture a large specimen and is going out with a swordfish sloop next week. I can probably arrange for the trap to be looked after, if you are off for a day or two. Do you want to go?"
"Indeed I do," said Colin. "Mr. Wadreds was telling me some stories just the other day about swordfish-catching."
"I suppose he told you the famous story of the swordfish which charged a vessel and drove its sword through 'copper sheathing, an inch boardunder-sheathing, a three-inch plank of hard wood, the solid white oak timber twelve inches thick, then through another two and a half-inch hard-oak ceiling, and lastly penetrated the head of an oil cask, where it stuck, not a drop of the oil having escaped?'"