rd 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