Look at your fish

The essay "Look At Your Fish" by Samuel Hubbard Scudder caught my attention from the start.  The title alone made me want to read more.  Fifteen years prior, Scudder was signed up as a student of natural history and entered the laboratory of Professor Agassiz and studied and worked with him.  Later he became his assistant at the Bostorn Society of Natural History.

In this essay he talks about the first assignment the professor gave him, which was to observe this fish called a haemulon.  He told him to keep the fish in a tin tray and keep it moist with the alcohol from the jar.  I like how he describes the huge neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects and how grimy they were.  The way Scudder describes the smell of himself after the time he spent with the fish.

Scudder thought that after ten minutes he had seen all that could be seen about the fish, but the professor keeps telling him to look at your fish and every time he does he discovers more about it each time and this goes on for three days. 

Agassiz's persistence  in the matter to keep looking and keep observing taught Scudder that there is more to it than meets the eye and not to look at things at the surface.

Scudder says it was the best entomological lesson he ever had, but I think it can also be looked at as a lifelong lesson.