6 DOING SCIENCE 



/A 



147 



They did not keep records of their choice sites and went to some trouble to 

 keep them unknown. But if Valois was to take over, he wanted to know where 

 to find things. So he resorted to such tactics as recording the mileage of trips 

 to collect particularly difficult organisms in order to guess just where the 

 collecting must have taken place. He wanted to learn the system and to bring 

 order and organization into the complex collection enterprise. 



Sometimes the collectors went out in search of an unusual catch. One 

 year, before he became assistant director at the MBL, Ulric Dahlgren agreed 

 to deliver a live shark to the New York City Aquarium in Battery Park. The 

 shark expedition began successfully. The team did catch the desired crea- 

 ture, then crated it up and began to tow the crate along behind the Vigilant. 

 They made it back to the MBL and showed olT their prize. But as they began 

 the long trip to New York, a squall came up. Given the Vigilant's imperfect 

 sailing capabilities, both boat and crate tossed in the waves, and the crate 

 broke loose. Look as they would the next day, the crew could not find it. Only 

 later did they learn, from a friend in New York who had seen a newspaper 

 report, that a shark in a crate had washed up on Long Island and had died 

 shortly thereafter. 



Students went on more normal collecting trips and on the annual picnic 

 into this century, with Veeder in control. The good captain protected 



John Valois with visitors, 

 Ronald and Margaret 

 Hicks, the Lord Mayor of Ul 

 Falmouth, England, and f^ 

 his wife, 1986. 

 MBL Archives. 



