19023 "The Fishes of Samoa' 



the most important pieces of work accomplished by 

 me) I had the assistance of Alvin Seale, an advanced 

 student, since commissioner of fisheries for the 

 Philippines and still later an assistant curator in the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Our Merita's 

 memoir included paintings of fifty of the most bril- P airitin & s 

 liant species by Kako Morita, a Japanese artist, a 

 few of them colored after field sketches of my own. 

 But as the printing of these exquisite plates involved 

 large expense, the government committee on publica- 

 tion recommended that they be omitted. In this 

 juncture I appealed to Roosevelt on the ground that 

 if the work was worth doing and the scientific results 

 were important, they should be published in detail. 

 The President took my view of the case, and by his 

 order "The Fishes of Samoa" appeared complete in 

 1906. 



to 



After a month or so of active collecting on the Back 

 reefs, "on the beach at Falesa," and in the various Pago Pago 

 streams which cross the coconut orchards or the 

 dense bush, we returned to Tutuila on the gunboat 

 Wheeling, then stationed at Pago Pago. For Captain 

 Sebree, having come over to Apia on official business, 

 took us all back as his guests, extending also to my 

 family the hospitality of his roof and board. This 

 we gratefully accepted for the duration of our stay, 

 though not until he had (reluctantly) agreed to 

 allow me to bear our proportionate share of actual 

 table expenses. I make this explanation partly to 

 differentiate us from an English globe-trotter who, as 

 a self-imposed guest of the commandant, made vari- 

 ous demands, practicable or otherwise, and took all 



C ii7 3 



