"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 sea are destroyed, as the wild beasts of the forest have fled before the face of man."
"Could that ever be done?"
"It will be done," the director answered, "but not in my time nor in yours. It is a piece of work in which every step counts, and just one summer's work may bring results that will help millions of people in the years yet to come."
"And I shall have a share!" cried Colin, his enthusiasm kindling.