Part 45 (1/2)

”Jus' the same,” was the reply, ”but for the market, an' there it's worth four or five times as much”

”When you come to think of it,” said Colin, ”there isn't much in the sea that isn't fit for food Even the swordfish is good eating”

”There's some poisonous fish down in the tropics,” was the reply, ”but I reckon that but for a few of those, a hungry h anythin'

that came out o' the water, fish or shellfish or anythin' An' you know,” he added, ”some folks, like the japanese an' South Sea Islanders, prefer 'eood to h, as the little steamer turned into the 'hole' ”I'm satisfied to eat oysters and clams raw, but not much else”

The rest of the reatly attached to Woods Hole The sense of accohout the place, every one was conscious that tie was one of entire content The boy reatest delight in knowing that he had really found the work that he wanted to do, and in trying as hard as he could to fit himself for it Every day he spent in the Bureau he saw more clearly the value of the work it had done and the opportunities for other great advances The exportation of live fish to foreign streareat attraction for him

”You know, Colin,” the director said to hi of the Bureau work, ”all over the world there are fish which we ought to be able to acclimatize in American waters, and there are American fish which would thrive abroad It has always been an idea of e parts of Asia by looking after the fish supply You hardly ever find a bad crop and a bad fish year coether, the one always ain it would have been in some of these Chinese and Indian famines if they could have had all the fish they wanted Millions of lives could have been saved The Bureau of Fisheries of this and other countries won't have finished its work until every river and stream of fresh water, every lake, and every square mile of the ocean is stocked with the very finest of the food fishes, and the undesirables are weeded out”

”Weeded out, like a garden?”

”Just exactly! Every hogfish and lamprey in American waters--that's a near-fish that sucks the blood of other fish, you know--should be exterminated just in the sa aith the Canada thistle Against the sharks--the tigers of the sea, the killers--the wolves of the sea, and all the other predatory fored until the wild fishes of the sea are destroyed, as the wild beasts of the forest have fled before the face of man”

”Could that ever be done?”

”It will be done,” the director answered, ”but not in my time nor in yours It is a piece of work in which every step counts, and just one su results that will help millions of people in the years yet to come”

”And I shall have a share!” cried Colin, his enthusias

”Every one has a share; in the Fisheries, no work is wasted, no energy is lost Whether it be such research as that which you have seenupon the oyster drill, or the spectacular administration of the seal herds on the Pribilof Islands, or the dry statistical work of esti the value of a fishery--on which work Dr Crafts writesplace The ai is petty We think in terms of millions and tens of millions, and Nature responds

There arethe world, but for the accoreat results I know of none superior”

”You said, sir,” said Colin, who had been startled by the reference to himself, ”that Dr Crafts had some other work for me?”

”Yes,” was the reply ”You know that the Laboratory here only keeps open until the first of September, don't you?”

”Yes, Mr Prelatt”

”What had you thought of doing between then and college?”

”I hadn't made any plans”

”I have a letter from the Deputy Commissioner, here,” the director continued, ”in which he asksfellohoo with one of the statistical field agents, and he suggests your nao It will be a short stay, not etting back to college”

”I should like to go, ever so ood of Dr Crafts to think of me”

”Very well, then,” answered the director; ”I'll write to hiht you would accept, unless you had made other plans”

”I don't think I know much about the statistical side of the Bureau,”

said Colin; ”just what does that take up?”

”Statistics mainly, but I can explain its value best by what I know it has done,” the director said thoughtfully ”One of the very best things it accoation into the cause of the heavy loss of life a-vessels”

”What was the cause, sir?”