fishery is valuable just the same, for there's more oil
and better oil got every year from menhaden than there is whale oil.
Nearly all fish manure is menhaden, too. But they're not a food fish."

"Nor are dogfish," said Colin, "but I see that the M. B. L. mess table
has them once in a while. We get lots of mackerel and other varieties
that are good eating. I wonder why they eat dogfish?"

"Partly to try it out," the collector said. "A dogfish is a shark, as
you know, and mos' people don't like the idea of eatin' any kind o'
shark. But it is a waste to have a good article o' food entirely
neglected by the public an' so the Bureau and the M. B. L. have tried
usin' dogfish on the table as an experiment to get an idea of its value
as food."

"It tastes all right, too," said the boy. "I had some yesterday."

"O' course it does, but the name is against it. Both dogfish and catfish
are good eatin', but there is a prejudice against 'em, because people
don't eat cats an' dogs. But they have been canned an' sold under
various names, such as 'ocean whitefish,' 'Japanese halibut,' an' 'sea
bass.'"

"They have a vicious look, though!"

"They are vicious," was the reply, "but you mustn't believe all you
hear. Why, at the last International Fishery Congress a speaker told of
a plague o' dogfish which not only attacked lobsters, but swallowed pots
an' all."

Colin looked incredulously at his friend.

"That's the story," the other said; "you don't have to believe it. I
don't."

"But after all, a dogfish is a shark, and aren't sharks the most vicious
creatures o' the sea?"

"I shouldn't say so," the old collector answered. "I reckon the moray is
really more vicious. He's always huntin' trouble. A shark is always
hungry, that's all. Fishes have different kinds o' tempers, you know,
an' often it's the smallest creature that's the meanest."

"Common fishes?"

"There isn't anythin' that swims that's meaner than a 'mad-Tom,' an'
they're frequent in all the rivers o' the middle west an' south. A
'mad-Tom,'" he continued in answer to the boy's questioning look, "is a
small catfish with spines. Most boys in riverside villages have their
hands all cut up by 'mad-Toms.' O' course there are scorpion-fish an'
toad-fishes in tropical waters, an' their poison will cripple a man for
a while, but there's no fish that's fatal."

"I thought there were lots of poisonous things in the water," Colin
said, "jellyfish and other things like t