The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 16

"When the salmon come in from the sea," the professor began, "there is a great deal of hesitation among them sometimes before they go up the river to sp.a.w.n, and we want to find out whether they go back to the sea again, whether they swim directly up the stream, or whether they remain in the brackish water at the mouth of the river."

"If you don't mind my saying so, what is the use of knowing?" asked Colin. "I mean, what does it matter as long as the salmon sp.a.w.ns?"

"The salmon is one of the most important food fishes of the country,"

the professor said rebukingly, "and it is as important for us to know all about its habits as it is to know about the way a grain of wheat grows."

"I hadn't thought of that," Colin said, a little shamefacedly. "I suppose everything really is important, no matter how small."

The professor smiled at him.

"If you have much to do with studying fish," he said, "or, indeed, with any kind of science, you will find out it is always the little things that tell the story. Take the grain of wheat again. If one kind of wheat ripens two days earlier on an average than another kind, you might think that so small a difference wouldn't be of great importance, but those two days might--and often do--make the difference between a good crop and one which is frost-bitten and spoiled."

"That's a lot easier to see," agreed the boy. "But, sir," he objected, "you can pick out one little bit of a field and work on that, and it will 'stay put.' Fishes wander all over the place."

"We want them to do so, my boy," was the reply.

"How can you work on separate fish? One looks so like another!"

"And for that very reason we're going to tag them."

"Tag them?"

"With a little aluminum b.u.t.ton fastened to their tail, just as bad youngsters fasten a tin can to a dog's tail. Every tag has a number, and we use aluminum because it corrodes rapidly in salt water."

"Then I should think," said Colin, "that was the very reason why you shouldn't use it."

"Why not?" asked the professor mildly. "We know that the salmon are not going to stay in the salt water, because they are going up the river to sp.a.w.n. If, therefore, we catch a fish in the nets higher up stream, with the tag bright and shining, we know that it hasn't been in salt water at all; if dull and just a little worn away, that the fish with that tag has been staying in the brackish water near the mouth of the river; but if it is deeply corroded, that the fish returned to sea for a time. As you see, a good deal of information is gathered that way. But in the morning you will have a chance to see how it is done, and then the results--when they are published--will seem more interesting."

"Have you been a.s.sociated with the Bureau of Fisheries, Professor Podd?"

Colin asked.

"Not directly," the other replied. "I should have enjoyed it, and it seems to me a work of the first importance, but every man is apt to think that about his own work, or work that is like his own. But I can tell you what decided me, nearly twenty years ago, to give all my spare time to the fishery question."

"What was that?" asked Colin.

"It was a phrase in a lecture that Dr. Baird, the founder of fish culture in America, was giving about the need of the work. He pointed out that there was more actual life in a cubic foot of water than in a cubic foot of land, and closed by saying, 'The work of conserving the Fisheries of the United States will not be finished until every acre of water is farmed as carefully as every acre or land.'"

"I never quite thought of it as farming," said the boy.

"Nor had I, before that time," the professor said. "But ever since then I have seen that we of the present time are the great pioneers, the discoverers, the explorers of this new world. Instead of blazing our trail through a wilderness of trees we dredge our way through a wilderness of waters; instead of a stockade around a blockhouse to protect us against wild beasts and wilder Indian foes, we have but a thin plank between us and destruction; instead of a few wolves and mountain-lions to prey upon the few head of stock we might raise, we have thousands of millions of fierce, finny pirates with which to do battle, and we work against odds the old pioneers could not even have estimated!"

"That's great!" cried Colin, his eyes shining.

"The surface of the sea," the professor continued, warming to his subject, "reveals no more of its mystery than the smoke cloud above the city tells the story of the wild race of life in its thronging streets, or than the waving tips of a forest of mighty trees reveal the myriad forms below. Each current of the ocean is an empire of its own with its tribes endlessly at war; the serried hosts of voracious fish prey on those about them, fishes of medium depth do perpetual war upon the surface fish, and some of these are forced into the air to fly like birds away from the Nemesis below."

"And much is still unknown, isn't it?"

"We are discovering a new world!" was the reply. "No one for a moment can deny the greatness of the finding of America, and Columbus and the other early navigators are sure of immortal fame, but even so, what was the New World they found to the illimitable areas of unknown life, in the bottom of the sea, that have been made known to man. Think of the wonder that has been revealed by the _Challenger_ and other ships that have explored the ocean beds!"

"There is still a great deal unknown, isn't there?"

"Still an unknown universe! Lurking in the utter darkness of the scarce-fathomed deeps of the ocean, what Kraken may not lie, coil on coil; what strange black, slimy, large-eyed forms do their stealthy hunting in perpetual night by the light of phosph.o.r.escent lamps they bear upon their bodies? Many of these there are, every year teaches of new species. The land--oh! the land is all well known, even the Arctic and Antarctic regions no longer hide their secrets, but the ocean is inscrutable. Smiling or in anger, she baffles us and her inmost shrines are still inviolate."

The professor checked himself suddenly, as though conscious of having been carried away by enthusiasm.

"We'll try and get at some of the secrets to-morrow," he said, "but it will mean early rising, as the trap is to be hauled at slack water."

Acting on the hint, Colin bade his host good-night, but his sleep was fitful and restless. The sudden pa.s.sionate speech of the grave scholar had been a revelation to the boy, and whereas he had felt a desire for the Fisheries Bureau before, he knew now that it had been largely with the sense of novelty and adventure. But the professor's words had given him a new light, and he saw what an ideal might be. He felt like a knight of the olden time, who, watching his armor the vigil before the conferring of knighthood, had been granted a vision of all his service might mean. He knew that night that the question he was to ask his father could have but the one answer, that the great decision of his life was made, his work was cut out to do.

Shortly after daybreak the next morning, Colin was called and he dressed hurriedly. After a hearty breakfast in which steel-head trout figured largely, he went down to the pier on the water and was not sorry to have the chance of showing his host that he was a good canoeist.

"How large is the work of the Bureau now, Professor?" asked Colin, as the light craft shot down the magnificent stretches of the Columbia River.

"Over three and a half billion eggs and small fish were distributed last year, if I remember rightly," was the reply. "Of course, a large proportion of these fish did not reach maturity, but perhaps half a billion did so, and half a billion fish is an immense contribution to the food supply of the world."

"But aren't there always lots of fish in the sea?" asked Colin. "When you come to compare land with water it always looks as though there must be so many that the number we catch wouldn't make any sort of impression on them."

"Think a bit," said the professor. "You've just come down from the Pribilof Islands. How did you find matters up there? Had the catching of seals been harmful, or were there so many seals still in the sea that it didn't matter what line of hunting went on?"

"Of course, pelagic sealing had nearly killed off the entire species,"

said Colin, "but, somehow, fish seem different. Oh, yes, I know why.

Seals only have one pup at a time and fishes have thousands of eggs."

"That's a very good reply," the professor agreed, "but why was it that pelagic sealing was so bad? Was it done all the year round?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILLIONS OF THESE HATCHED YEARLY.

Brook Trout just hatching, showing fry with egg-sacs still attached.

_Courtesy of the National Geographic Magazine._]

"No," said Colin, "princ.i.p.ally when the females were coming to the sp.a.w.ning ground."

"And the Pribilof Islands are only a small place. Especially when compared to the range of oceans the seal cover during the rest of the year?"

"Very small."

"Then," said the other, "it is easy to see that the respective size of land and water has very little to do with the general fishery question.

But if a seal or a fish must come to the land or to narrow rivers to sp.a.w.n, it follows that man possesses the power to determine whether sp.a.w.ning shall continue or not, doesn't it?"

"Yes," agreed Colin, "I suppose it does."

"And if you protect the seals, the herd will increase."

"It ought to."

"Very good. That is just the work we are doing here. The salmon come into fresh water to sp.a.w.n--just like shad and a number of other species of fish--and when you kill a salmon just about to ascend the river, you destroy at the same time the thousands of eggs she bears."

"But I thought salmon were always caught running up a stream?" said Colin in surprise.