The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries

Francis Rolt-Wheeler

Informations

• Publié par: zuif
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Project Gutenberg's The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler Release Date: April 8, 2007 [EBook #21008] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U.S. FISHERIES *** Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Stripping Cod at Sea on a Winter Morning. Fisheries Bureau Spawn-taker aboard a trawler. Note the snow on the rail, the frozen spray on the mast, and the ice on the rigging. Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. U. S. SERVICE SERIES. THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER With Fifty-one Illustrations, principally from Bureaus of the United States Government BOSTON LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. Published, November, 1912 C OPYRIGHT, 1912, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD C O . All rights reserved THE B OY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES Norwood Press BERWICK AND SMITH C O . Norwood, Mass. U. S. A. To My Son Roger's Friend COLIN McLACHLIN PREFACE Treasure-ships, bearing richer cargoes than any galleons that crossed the Spanish Main, still sail over the ocean to-day, but we call them fishing smacks; heroism equal to that of any of the pioneer navigators of old still is found beneath oilskins and a sou'wester, but the heroes give their lives to gain food for the world instead of knowledge; and the thrilling quest of piercing the mysteries of life has no greater fascination than when it seeks to probe the unfathomed depths of that great mistress of mysteries—the Ocean. Just as to save life is greater than to destroy it, so is the true savior of the seas the Fisheries craft, not the battleship; so is the hatchery mightier than the fortress, the net or the microscope a more powerful weapon for good than the torpedo or the Nordenfeldt. The Bureau of Fisheries for the United States Government, Mr. Chas. Frederick Holder and his associates for the anglers of America, and the sturdy and honorable class of commercial fishermen are raising to the utmost of dignity and value one of the oldest and greatest of all industries. Not till the waste of waters is tamed as has been the wilderness of land will their work be done, and the Fisheries Bureau must ever remain in the forefront of such endeavor. To reveal the incalculable riches of this vast domain of rivers, lakes, and seas; to show the devotion of those whose lives are spent amid its elemental perils and to point out a way where courage, skill, and youth may find a road to serve America and all the world beside, is the aim and purpose of THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTER I MAROONED BY A WHALE CHAPTER II THE FIGHT OF THE OLD BULL SEALS CHAPTER III ATTACKED BY JAPANESE POACHERS CHAPTER IV C ATCHING THE SEA SERPENT CHAPTER V 112 75 39 1 C LUTCHED BY A H ORROR OF THE D EEP CHAPTER VI D EFEATED BY A SPOTTED MORAY CHAPTER VII H ARPOONING A GIANT SEA VAMPIRE CHAPTER VIII FINDING A FORTUNE IN A PEARL CHAPTER IX A TUSSLE WITH THE MONARCH OF THE SEA CHAPTER X R UN DOWN D URING A SQUALL 152 195 234 278 314 359 ILLUSTRATIONS Stripping Cod at Sea on a Winter Morning Whale Harpoon Gun Loaded Finback Whale Being Struck Finback Whale Sounding Lancing Finback Pumping Carcass with Air Dead Finback Set Adrift Spearing Seals at Sea Holluschickie Hauling Up Old Bull Seals Fighting Bull Fur Seal Charging Snapshotting an Old Beachmaster Haul of Herring at Gastineau Channel, Alaska Typical Seal Rookery Half Abandoned Native Salmon Trap Modern Salmon Trap Trout Fry. "Millions of These Hatched Yearly" Hatcheries for Landlocked Salmon Atlantic Salmon Leaping Frontispiece FACING PAGE 14 28 46 64 78 90 102 116 128 138 146 Pacific Salmon Leaping Sea-Serpent Caught by Colin Sea-Serpent Stranded Where the Big Tuna was Caught The Largest Sunfish Octopus Caught at Santa Catalina Squid Caught at Santa Catalina Headquarters of Fisheries Bureau Largest Seine in World The Pool Where the Dog Was Devoured Early Bird Passing the Aquarium The Gorgeous Submarine World The Gardens of the Sea Young Sponge on Cement Disk Sheepswool Sponge Manta or Giant Sea-Devil Winter on the Great Lakes Winter Work on Inland Streams Clamming on the Mississippi Barge-loads of Mussels Landing the Paddle-fish Climbing up the Wheel Biggest Fresh-water Fish in America The Blue Wing at the Fish Trap Hatchery, Woods Hole Residence, Woods Hole "What Shall We Get this Time?" "Here's a New One, Boys!" Catching Swordfish with Rod and Reel Clammer Raking for Quahaugs Oysterman Tonging Testing the Ocean's Crop 146 154 170 190 202 224 238 250 264 276 284 296 306 318 328 336 346 356 370 378 THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES CHAPTER I MAROONED BY A WHALE "There she blows!" Colin Dare, who was sitting beside the broken whale-gun and who had been promised that he might go in the boat that would be put out from the ship if a whale were sighted, jumped to his feet at the cry from the 'barrel' at the masthead. "Where?" he shouted eagerly, rushing to the rail and staring as hard as he could at the heaving gray waters of the Behring Sea. "There she blo-o-ows!" again cried the lookout, in the long echoing call of the old-time whaler, and stretching out his hand, he pointed to a spot in the ocean about three points off the starboard bow. Colin's glance followed the direction, and almost immediately he saw the faint cloud of vapor which showed that a whale had just spouted. "Do you suppose that's a whalebone whale, Hank?" asked the boy, turning to a lithe Yankee sea-dog with a scraggy gray beard who had been busily working over the mechanism of the whale-gun. "No sayin'," was the cautious reply, "we're too fur off to be able to tell yet a while. How fur away do you reckon we be?" "A mile or two, I suppose," Colin said, "but we ought to catch up with the whale pretty soon, oughtn't we?" "That depends," the gunner answered, "on whether the whale's willin' or not. He ain't goin' to stay, right there." "But you usually do catch up?" "If it's a 'right' whale we generally try to, an' havin' steam to help us out makes a pile o' difference. Now, in the ol' days, I've seen a dozen whales to wind'ard an' we couldn't get to 'em at all. By the time we'd beaten 'round to where they'd been sighted, they were gone." "Well, I hope this is a 'right' whale," Colin said with emphatic earnestness. "Why this one 'specially?" the old sailor asked. "I heard Captain Murchison say that if we came up with a whale while the gun was out of order, rather than lose a chance, he would send a boat out in the oldfashioned way." "An' you want to see how it's done, eh?" "I got permission to go in the boat!" the boy answered triumphantly, "and I just can't wait." "It's the skipper's business, I suppose, but I don't hold with takin' any chances you don't have to," was the gruff comment, "an' if you'll take the advice of an old hand at the game you'll keep away." "But I want to go so much, Hank," came the reply. "What for?" "I'm trying to get Father's permission to join the Bureau of Fisheries," explained the boy, "and when Captain Murchison started on this trip, I begged him to let me come. The captain is an old friend of his." "I'd rather you went in somebody else's boat than mine, then," was the ungracious response. "Why, Hank!" exclaimed Colin in surprise, "what a thing to say!" The old sailor nodded sagely. "The skipper don't know much more about boat-whalin' than you do," he said, "that was all done away before his time. He's willin' to tackle anythin' that comes along, all right, but a whalin' boat is just about the riskiest thing that floats on water." "How's that, Hank?" asked the boy. "I always thought they were supposed to be so seaworthy." "They may be seaworthy," was the grim reply, "but I never yet saw a shipwright who'd guarantee to make a boat that'd be whaleworthy." "But I'm sure I've read somewhere that whales never attacked boats," persisted Colin. "Mebbe," rejoined the gunner, "but I don't believe that any man what writes about whalin' bein' easy, has ever tried it in a small boat." "Well," said the boy, "isn't it true that the only time a whale-boat is smashed up is when the monster threshes around in the death-flurry and happens to hit the boat with his tail?" "Not always." "You mean a whale does sometimes go for a boat, in spite of what the books say?" "I never heard that whales cared much about literatoor," the sailor answered with an attempt at rough humor, "an' anyway, most o' them books you've been readin', lad, are written about whalin' off Greenland an' in the Atlantic." "What difference does that make?" queried Colin. "Isn't a whale the same sort of animal all the world over?" "There's all kinds of whales," the gunner said, as though pitying the boy for his lack of knowledge, "some big an' some little, some good an' some bad. Now, a 'right' whale, f'r instance, couldn't harm a baby, but the killers are just pure vicious." "You mean the orcas?" the boy queried. "Only just the other day Captain Murchison was talking about them. He called them the wolves of the sea, and said they were the most daring hunters among all things that swim." "Sea-tigers, some calls 'em," the other agreed, "an' they're fiercer than any wolves I've ever heard about, but I never saw any of 'em attackin' a boat. I have seen as many as twenty tearin' savagely at a whale that was lyin' alongside a ship an' was bein' cut up by the crew. The California gray whale—the devilwhale is what he really is—looks a lot worse to me than a killer. He's as uglytempered as a spearfish, as vicious as a man-eatin' shark, as tricky as a moray, an' about as relentless as a closin' ice-floe." "There she blo-o-ows!" came th