A&O READING – “Take This Fish” by Samuel Scudder

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It was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laboratory of

Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in the Scientific School

as a student of natural history. He asked me a few questions about my object in

coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to

use the knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study any

special branch. To the latter I replied that, while I wished to be well grounded in

all departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself specially to insects.

“When do you wish to begin?” he asked.

“Now,” I replied.

This seemed to please him, and with an energetic “Very well!” he reached

from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol. “Take this fish,” he said,

“and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen.”

With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit instructions as

to the care of the object entrusted to me. “No man is fit to be a naturalist,” said

he, “who does not know how to take care of specimens.”

I was to keep that fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally moisten

the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to replace the stopper

tightly. Those were the days of ground-glass stoppers and elegantly shaped

exhibition jars; all the old students will recall the huge neckless glass bottles with

their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects, and begrimed with cellar

dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of

the Professor, who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce

the fish, was infectious; and though this alcohol had a “very ancient and fishlike

smell,” I really dared not show any aversion within these sacred precincts, and

treated the alcohol as though it were pure water. Still, I was conscious of a

passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at the fish did not commend itself to

an ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed when they

discovered that no amount of eau-de cologne would drown the perfume which

haunted me like a shadow.

In the ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and

started in search of the Professor — who had, however, left the Museum; and

when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper

apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed some fluid over the fish as if

to resuscitate the beast from a fainting fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of

the normal sloppy appearance. This little excitement over, nothing was to be

done but to return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour

passed — an hour — another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it

over and around; looked it in the face — ghastly; from behind, beneath, above,

sideways, at a three quarters’ view –just as ghastly. I was in despair; at any

early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so, with infinite relief, the fish

was carefully replaced in the jar and for an hour I was free.

On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the Museum,

but had gone, and would not return for several hours. My fellow students were

too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation. Slowly I drew forth that

hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might not use

a magnifying-glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my

two eyes, and the fish; it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down

its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in

different rows, until I was convinced that was nonsense. At last a happy thought

struck me — I would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new

features in the creature. Just then the Professor returned.

“That is right,” said he; “a pencil is one of the best of eyes. I am glad to

notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet, and your bottle corked.”

With these encouraging words, he added, “Well, what is it like?”

He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose

names were still unknown to me; the fringed gill arches and movable operculum;

the pores of the head, fleshy lips and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the spinous

fins, and forked tail; the compressed and arched body. When I finished, he

waited as if expecting more, and then with an air of disappointment:

“You have not looked very carefully; why,” he continued more earnestly,

“you haven’t even seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal,

which is plainly before your eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!” and he

left me to my misery.

I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more that wretched fish! but now I set

myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another until I

saw how just the Professor’s criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly,

and when, towards its close, the Professor inquired: “Do you see it yet?”

“No,” I replied, “I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before.”

“That is next best,” said he, earnestly, “But I won’t hear you now; put away

your fish and go home; and perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the

morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish.”

This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night, studying,

without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might

be; but also, without reviewing my discoveries, I must give an exact account of

them the next day. I had a bad memory; so I walked home by the Charles River

in a distracted state, with my two perplexities.

The cordial greeting from the Professor the next morning was reassuring;

here was a man who seemed quite as anxious as I that I should see myself what

he saw.

“Do you perhaps mean,” I asked, “that the fish has symmetrical sides with

paired organs?”

His thoroughly pleased, “Of course! Of course!” repaid the wakeful hours

of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically –

– as he always did — upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I

should do next.

“Oh, look at your fish!” he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a

little more than an hour, he returned and heard my new catalogue.

“That is good, that is good!” he repeated; “but that is not all; go on”; and so

for three long days he placed that fish before my eyes, forbidding me to look at

anything else, or to use any artificial aid. “Look, look, look,” was his repeated

injunction.

This was the best entomological lesson I ever had — a lesson whose

influence has extended to the details of [every] subsequent study; a legacy … the

Professor had left to me, as he has left to so many others, of inestimable value,

which we could not buy, with which we cannot part.

A year afterward, some of us were amusing ourselves with chalking

outlandish beasts on the Museum blackboard. We drew prancing starfishes;

frogs in mortal combat; hydra-headed worms; stately crawfishes standing on their

tails, bearing aloft umbrellas; and grotesque fishes with gaping mouths and

staring eyes. The Professor came in shortly after, and was amused as any at our

experiments. He looked at the fishes.

“Haemulons, every one of them,” he said; “Mr. ____ drew them.”

True, and to this day, if I attempt a fish, I can draw nothing but haemulons.

The fourth day, a second fish of the same group was placed beside the

first, and I was bidden to point out the resemblances and differences between the

two; another and another followed, until the entire family lay before me, and a

whole legion of jars covered the table and surrounding shelves; the odor had

become a pleasant perfume; and even now, the sight of an old, six-inch wormeaten

cork brings fragrant memories.

The whole group of haemulons was thus brought in review; and, whether

engaged upon the dissection of the internal organs, the preparation and

examination of the bony framework, or the description of the various parts,

Agassiz’s training in the method of observing facts and their orderly arrangement

was ever accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with them.

“Facts are stupid things,” he would say, “until brought into connection with

some general law.”

At the end of eight months, it was almost with reluctance that I left these

friends and turned to insects; but what I had gained by this outside experience

has been of greater value than years of later investigations in my favorite groups.

Samuel H. Scudder (1837-1911) was an American scientist who was educated at Williams College and Harvard University. His main scientific contributions were in the study of butterflies and Orthoptera (an order of insects that includes grasshoppers and crickets). He was one of the most learned and productive entomologists of his day.  Scudder was a student of Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), the distinguished Harvard professor of natural history, who used to subject his students to a rigorous but useful exercise in minute observation. The [essay] is Scudder’s account of one such exercise. — Jo Ray McCuen and Anthony C. Winkler, eds. Readings for Writers, 4th ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., 1974), pp. 82-85.