few of those, a hungry man could eat nigh 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 'em raw."

"Doesn't sound good to me at all," the boy said with a laugh, 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 month passed all too rapidly for Colin, who was becoming
greatly attached to Woods Hole. The sense of accomplishment was strong
throughout the place, every one was conscious that time was well spent,
and the atmosphere of the little village was one of entire content. The
boy made any number of friends, but above all, he took his greatest
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 streams had a great attraction for him.

"You know, Colin," the director said to him one day, when he was
speaking 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
mine that we could probably prevent famines in large parts of Asia by
looking after the fish supply. You hardly ever find a bad crop and a bad
fish year come together, the one always makes up for the other. Just
think what a gain 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 same way that the farmers of the country are
making away with the Canada thistle. Against the sharks--the tigers of
the sea, the killers--the wolves of the sea, and all the other predatory
forms, relentless war should be waged until the wild fishes of the se