The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 36

"Yes, Dr. Crafts," the boy replied; "he told me a lot about it."

"I thought so," was the reply. "I remember some magazine articles he did. And I suppose you thought you wanted to take a ride?"

"I'm a good swimmer, sir," Colin answered a little proudly.

"You mean you can swim," the Deputy Commissioner responded a little sharply, for being modest himself, he disliked any appearance of boasting.

"Yes, sir," the boy said; "that was what I meant."

"Well, there's no turtle-riding at Beaufort. If you knew a little more about these subjects, you wouldn't make such breaks, whether you have been reading up on them or not. The leather turtle, the big one on which men dive by holding on to the sh.e.l.l, is an aquatic species and never comes into brackish water. The terrapin lives in the mud, and is only to be found in marshy places. If you want to go turtle-riding for your vacation, why, go ahead, no one's going to stop you, but you can hardly do that while officially or even unofficially acting as an a.s.sistant at Beaufort. It's almost as far from Beaufort to the Florida Keys as it is from here to Hudson's Bay."

"I hadn't realized that, sir," Colin answered, surprised.

"Very few people do," was the reply. "Why, the State of Florida alone is as long as the distance from New York to Nova Scotia, or Washington to Detroit. You can't go after leather-turtle from Beaufort unless you've got--not seven-leagued boots, but seven-leagued fins."

"I'm sorry I bothered you about it, Dr. Crafts," the boy answered. "I really hadn't given the distances much thought."

"Wait a bit," said the Deputy Commissioner, as the boy turned to go. "I don't want you to feel badly about your summer. What do you know about mussels?"

"Very little, sir," the boy answered; "hardly anything."

"Let me tell you a story about them," the Deputy Commissioner said, smiling as the boy's face lighted up at the word "story." "Seven or eight centuries ago," his friend began--"that is, if you want to hear it?"

"Oh, yes, sir," came the reply.

"That's a long way back--a small trading-vessel was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay on the west coast of France, near the little village of Esnandes. All hands were lost except one sailor, an Irishman, called Walton."

"Sure to be an Irishman who got ash.o.r.e," commented the boy.

"This was a particularly ingenious son of Erin," the other continued.

"Although he did not speak a word of French, with the likeableness that seems to have been the chief note of the Irish character then, and which they have never lost, Walton speedily became popular in the little French village. This was the more remarkable, as there was a great scarcity of food in the village, the inhabitants depending entirely on fishing, and the fishing-grounds having become worked out. Hence the presence of a stranger for whom to provide food became a serious problem.

"But the Irish had not been the teachers and scholars of Europe during the five preceding centuries for nothing, and though Walton was but a sailor, he shared the quick-wittedness of his race. He had heard somewhere that people often starved in the midst of plenty, and he started exploring for food on his own account. The village was built near a wide stretch of mud, which was covered by the sea at high tide, but dry when the water went down, and he noticed that numbers of land- and sea-birds were in the habit of skimming over the mud at low tide, apparently picking up worms.

"Birds could be eaten, he thought. Accordingly, patching together all the old bits of net that could be found and mending the holes, the Irishman made a huge net two or three hundred yards long. Then he drove a number of stakes into the mud, working almost night and day, and stretched the net vertically about ten feet above the mud. The net was made something like a fish-trap, so that birds flying under would find it difficult to get out. On the very first night the net was spread, he caught enough birds to feed the village for a week."

"Bully for him!" cried Colin.

"That was only the beginning," the Deputy Commissioner continued. "The ingenious stranger now began to consider what food it was that attracted these birds, and to his surprise, instead of worms, found that they lived on an unknown black sh.e.l.lfish, now called mussels. If the birds ate mussels and the birds were good to eat, Walton reasoned that mussels must be fit for food. He ate some in order to find out."

"That's the real scientific spirit," said Colin, laughing.

"He was Irish and willing to take a chance," was the smiling rejoinder.

"However that may be, he not only found that they were good to eat, but that they were good eating. He had hard work to persuade the villagers to his point of view, although his success with the birds had made him a sort of hero. Soon, however, mussels came to be in great demand. Then Walton noticed that young mussels in great numbers were gathering on the submerged stakes of his net, and being prolific of ideas, he promptly had several hundred more stakes cut and driven into the mud. He found, then, that mussels thus suspended over the mud grew fatter and of better flavor, and accordingly designed frames with interlacing branches which collected them by hundreds. This system, known as the 'buchot' system, has been practiced continuously at the village of Esnandes during all the centuries since that time, and the income to the little village last year was over one hundred and twelve thousand dollars as a result of the ingenuity of the castaway Irishman."

"Then mussels are fit for food," Colin said in surprise. "I thought they were only used for bait."

"Mussels, sea-mussels that is, are as good a food as clams,--some people claim that they are better,--and they have just about three times as much food value as the oyster. That's why I told you the story. We expect to make the mussel industry as important as the clam fishery, giving employment to thousands of people and establishing what is practically a new food supply in the United States, although it is common throughout the sh.o.r.e countries of Europe."

"But the pearl mussels," queried Colin, "can you eat those, too?"

"It is doubtful," was the reply, "but their value lies so largely in their use for mother-of-pearl in the b.u.t.ton industry, that their food value would be of only secondary importance, unless they could be pickled or canned, as is done sometimes with the sea-mussels. But, Colin," he added, "if you think that the mussel doesn't sound an interesting subject, let me tell you that I think it is, in itself, one of the most interesting creatures in the water. Its life history is astounding, and there are scores of problems yet to be worked out. Read this," he added, handing the lad a Bulletin of the Bureau; "it has only just come out, and if I have judged you rightly, you'll come here on June fifteenth so eager to get to a mussel-bed that there will be no holding you!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLAMMING ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARGE-LOADS OF MUSSELS FOR THE MOTHER-OF-PEARL INDUSTRY.

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]

Two hours later, the Deputy Commissioner, leaving the office for the day, started on his walk home, going through the park in the direction of the Smithsonian Museum. On his way he was surprised to see Colin sitting 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 made it impossible for Colin even to wait until he got 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 jumped up as soon as he saw his friend, fairly stuttering 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 of men answering for a week! Didn't I tell you that there's a world of work to be done over the mussel? But if you like to walk along, 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 marsupium, or pouch. Has a fresh-water mussel really got 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 awkward fashion. 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 mussel, only the egg goes there. The word 'marsupium' was what threw you off. What really happens is that the egg pa.s.ses 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 sh.e.l.l of its own, doesn't it?" asked the boy.

"It does," was the reply.

"Well," said the eager questioner, "if it has a sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 small fish, four inches in length, 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 mussel that develops without going through the parasite stage, but it is not as common as the others. Curiously enough, the only way to raise the mussel artificially is by means of parasitism on the fish. As you read there, it is a simple matter to get 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 development of the industry."

"Are all mussels equally good for making mother-of-pearl?"

"No," was the reply. "There are two chief commercial varieties, of different species, one larva having a hook on the sh.e.l.l, so that it can attach to fins or tail, the other being smaller and without hooks and making its way into the gills. 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 problems you won't have touched. Don't forget now, the fifteenth."

"Never fear, Dr. Crafts," Colin answered; "I won't forget. I wish it were here now."

Time did not hang heavily on the boy's hands, for he was interested in all phases of fishing, and spent a couple of weeks on a trout stream in Northern Maine, not only catching the fish, but--as he had been advised--making notes of any peculiarities he saw in those he caught.

Many stories had been told him of the finding of new species by young investigators, and he was amazed to see what wide differences existed in fish of the same species.