"Perching like birds?" Colin said incredulously.
"I know that sounds a little improbable, but it's true, just the same," the professor said, smiling. "This is a Fisheries story, not a 'fish story.' There's a difference. They come from Samoa and belong to the skippy family. Most of them live on the rocks, and they jump from rock to rock instead of swimming. Some of them even are vegetarians—which is rare among fish—and their gills are smaller and stouter. Plenty of them are only in the water for a little while at high tide, living in the moist seaweed until the tide rises again."
Colin was silenced, and he went on vigorously dipping up salmon.
"How many fish are you going to tag?" the boy asked, when a couple of hours had passed by.
"Sixty," the professor answered, "and we must be nearly through, for I have only a few buttons left."
Secretly the boy was much relieved, for his back was tired from stooping and netting heavy fish for two hours, but he would have worked to utter exhaustion rather than complain. However, within another quarter of an hour, the last fish was dropped over the side and the party was on its return journey.
"Why don't you stop and see the hatchery?" suggested the professor, in return to a host of questions put to him by the boy concerning salmon culture.
"I'd like to, ever so much, if I might," was the answer, and Colin looked up at the foreman.
"Come right along," was the latter's immediate response. "It isn't much of a place to look at, but you can see whatever there is to see."