The Wreck of the Red Bird: A Story of the Carolina Coast

"And kept him to show to me?" asked Ned.

"Yes, but he disappeared."

"Of course he did. He spat himself away."

"How's that?"

"Why, if you take a pin-cushion fish out of the water, and put him down on a board, he'll sit there looking like a judge for a little while; then he'll begin to spit, and when he spits all the water out, there's nothing left of him except a small lump of jelly. They're very curious things. I wish we had a good popular book about our Southern fishes and the curious things that live in the water here on the coast."

"Don't you suppose these things are represented at all in scientific books?" asked Jack.

"I suppose that many of them are, but many of them are not, and those that are described, are described by names that we know nothing about, and so only a naturalist could find the descriptions or recognize them when found. With all Northern fishes that are familiarly known, the case is different. If a Northern boy wants to find out more than he knows already about a codfish, he looks for the information under the familiar name 'Codfish,' and finds it there. He does not need to know in advance that the cod is a fish of the Gadus family, and the Morrhua vulgaris species. So, when he wants to know about the whiting that he is familiar with, he finds the information under the name whiting; but the scientific men who wrote the books, however much they may know about the fish that we call whiting, do not know, I suppose, that it is anywhere called whiting, and so they don't put the information about it under that head. They only come down South as far as New Jersey, and tell about a species of fish which is there called whiting, though it isn't the real whiting. If they had known that still another and a very different fish goes by that name down here, they would have told us about that too, in the same way."

"What's the remedy?" asked Charley.

"For you, or Jack, or me," answered Ned, "to study science, and to make a specialty of our Southern fishes. When we do that and give the world all the information we can get by really intelligent observation, all the scientific writers will welcome the addition made to the general store of knowledge. That is the way it has all been found out."

"Why can't we begin now?"

"Because we haven't learned how to observe. We don't know enough of general principles to be able to understand what we see. Let's form habits of observation, and let's study science systematically; after that we can observe intelligently, and make a real contribution to knowledge."

"You're not going to write your book on the Marine Fauna of the Southern States to-night, are you?" asked Jack.

"No, certainly not," said Ned, with a laugh at his own enthusiasm.

"Then let's go to bed; I'm sleepy," said Jack.

CHAPTER VII

AN ENEMY IN THE CAMP

The three tired boys went to sleep easily enough, and the snoring inside their hut gave fair promise of a late waking the next day. But before long Jack became restless in his sleep, and began to toss about a good deal. Charley seemed to catch his restlessness, and presently he sat up in the bunk and began to slap himself. This thoroughly aroused him, and as Jack and Ned were tossing about uneasily he had no scruple in speaking to them.

"I say, fellows, we're attacked."

"What's the matter?" muttered Ned, at the same time beginning to rub himself vigorously, first on one part of the body, then on another.

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