Dr. and Mrs. Smith occupied a five -room apartmient, the 

 so-called Commissioner's quarters, on the second floor of the 

 residence building and frequently held receptions for the scientists 

 in the large sitting and dining rooms of the first floor. This prac- 

 tice, established by Baird and continued by Commissioner 

 McDonald, became a regular feature during the ensuing years. It 

 gave a chance to beginners in science to meet and talk to the men 

 who had already achieved success and occupied positions of im- 

 portance and influence. The affairs, as I remember them, were 

 informal, simple, gay, but at the same time dignified. Of small 

 stature, always neatly dressed and speaking with a soft voice. 

 Smith at Woods Hole seemed to us a different man from the per- 

 son we saw occasionally in his imposing office in Washington. He 

 received visitors and employees sitting in a large black leather 

 chair behind a highly polished mahogany desk. As an official of 

 high rank, he seemed polite but reserved, almost to the point of 

 being cold and forbidding. At Woods Hole he was a different man-- 

 a fellow zoologist, with an inner drive to see nature with his own 

 eyes; a person who loved to go in a small boat to seine for fishes 

 or to observe the birds, which he knew as well as fishes and 

 snakes. It was an inspiring experience to accompany Smith on a 

 collecting trip to Menemsha Bight at Marthas Vineyard Island. He 

 loved to go collecting there, particularly in August when south- 

 eastern winds brought in a number of southern fishes not found 

 around Woods Hole at the other times of the year. Dressed in an 

 old blue sweater, weather-beaten hat, and in long rubber boots, 

 and a notebook with pencil stuck into the right boot leg, he was 

 ready for action (fig. 30). He showed us how to use the small 

 hand seine most effectively. The material was sorted on the 

 beach right after each haul. The needed specimens were preserv- 

 ed, and the rest thrown back into the water while they were still 

 alive. Upon returning to the Laboratory, the entire afternoon 

 was spent in studying, measuring, sometimes in dissecting, the 

 morning's catch. Fine points of taxonomy or structural peculi- 

 arities of fish were often explained. All his associates in the 

 Laboratory of Woods Hole soon recognized the high mental and 

 spiritual qualities that inspired respect and admiration. This feel- 

 ing is well expressed in a letter sent to Smith by one of his subordin- 

 ates (the Superintendent of the Woods Hole Station) on the occasion 

 of his resignation. One sentence of the message reads as follows: 

 "Here your visits have been looked forward to with pleasure, I 

 think, because the MAN was so much larger than the boss, this 

 notwithstanding the fact that the boss is one of the greatest in his 

 class". 



As a Commissioner of Fisheries from 1913 to 1922, Smith 

 on several occasions defined the role of the Woods Hole Labora- 

 tory as a research institution for the Bureau. In the annual report 



68 



