Part 36 (2/2)
_Courtesy of the U S Bureau of Fisheries_]
[Illustration: BARGE-LOADS OF MUSSELS FOR THE MOTHER-OF-PEARL INDUSTRY
_Courtesy of the U S Bureau of Fisheries_]
Two hours later, the Deputy Co the office for the day, started on his walk hoh the park in the direction of the Smithsonian Museu on a bench near the Fisheries Building, absolutely engrossed in a gray, paper-covered folio Dr Crafts recognized it as the Bulletin he had given the lad early in the afternoon, and he laughed aloud at the boyish impatience which had ot the book home The Deputy Commissioner had to speak twice before he was heard
”Well, Colin,” he said, ”are you learning it off by heart?”
The boy ju with all the questions he wanted to ask
”I've got to go home,” the Deputy Commissioner said, when Colin stopped to take breath; ”and you've put queries enough to keep a staff offor a week! Didn't I tell you that there's a world of work to be done over the , why, I'll tell you anything I can”
”Thanks, ever so much,” the boy said; ”but what puzzles me in this Bulletin is the mussel's ot a pouch like a kangaroo?”
The Deputy Commissioner pushed his hat back over his forehead
”Colin,” he said, ”you have a knack of putting questions in the most aard fashi+on I suppose, in a way, the answer is 'not quite,' because in the kangaroo, the baby is almost completely formed when it is placed in the pouch, while in the oes there The word 'marsupiu passes into this pouch or pocket in the gills, and is there fertilized as the current of water flows in and out over the gills”
”And it stays there until it has a shell of its own, doesn't it?” asked the boy
”It does,” was the reply
”Well,” said the eager questioner, ”if it has a shell and is able to look out for itself, why doesn't it? Yet the book says that it always attacks a fish and lives as a parasite for a while”
”It doesn't attack a fish, Colin,” the other answered; ”it only fastens on to one Besides which, although the mussel has a shell, it isn't able to look out for itself There is a change of form while it is fastened to the fish”
”But doesn't it hurt the fish?”
”Not permanently It causes a local sore or a cyst, like the tiniest kind of a blister, in the middle of which the larva of the mussel is safely curled up and stays there until fully developed Then the cyst breaks, the mussel drops out, and the tiny wound heals rapidly Even a sth, can carry five hundred of these little creatures on its fins and in its gills without serious injury”
”Suppose it can't find a fish?”
”That's the end of the mussel, then! There is one kind of e, but it is not as coh, the only way to raise the mussel artificially is by means of parasitiset these tiny creatures from the 'pouch' of the mother mussel, put them in an aquarium with some fish, and keep the water stirred up In a few minutes the larvae will have fastened themselves on It is wise to keep these fish in a hatchery for a month or so and then simply release them; when the mussels are ready they will drop off, and a new crop of mussels is on the way By this means you can start them without much trouble in rivers and streams where there were none before, so that you see what chances there are for the developood formother-of-pearl?”
”No,” was the reply ”There are two chief co a hook on the shell, so that it can attach to fins or tail, the other being sills But you'll go into all that when you get to Fairport, and even after you have worked at mussels all summer there will be a lot of probleet now, the fifteenth”
”Never fear, Dr Crafts,” Colin answered; ”I won't forget I wish it were here now”
Ti heavily on the boy's hands, for he was interested in all phases of fishi+ng, and spent a couple of weeks on a trout strea the fish, but--as he had been advised--ht
Many stories had been told hiators, and he was amazed to see ide differences existed in fish of the same species