Noisy Fish

The Department of the Interior's vast building in Washington is a homey place.

Its terrible-tempered ruler, Secretary Harold L. Ickes, bolts about switching off lights to save electricity. The gesture is noble in purpose, and--to those who appreciate the endless, grab-bag complexity of Interior's duties--understandable. Interior sells electricity, protects the Indians, manages forests, preserves historic buildings, sets minimum soft-coal prices, interferes in the government of Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, rules Western cattle ranges, settles irrigated areas in semi-arid regions, watches over wild life and fish. All these sprawling activities are linked by a central theme: conservation of natural resources.

To Government press agents who grind out daily releases extolling her virtues, Interior is a dull mistress. Usually they have little more to report than the fact that Fish and Wildlife Service says "the outlook for migratory waterfowl looks, promising." Once in a blue moon, when they get the chance, they go off on a literary bender. Last week the moon was electric blue, and Interior fell off the wagon with a pamphlet called Piscatorial Serenades:

"Contrary to the widespread belief that fishes possess no voices and therefore must lead a life of perpetual silence," said Interior's Information Service, "many fish are quite noisy creatures." The grunt, for instance, makes a loud, grunting noise at times, and a school of them "playing around the bottom of an anchored boat on a still, tropical night will make enough noise to awaken the sleeping crew."

Sunfish and horse mackerel, although not mad at anyone, make a harsh sound by grinding their lower pharyngeal teeth together. Conger eels bark, schoolmasters sound as if they were delivering a lecture, and the oldwife gossips away with chirps and chatters. The male weakfish, during the mating season, vibrates his air bladder with such vigor that he can be heard six feet above water while he is sounding off from 50 feet under.

Some noisy fish, Interior vows, make a sound like a click beetle just by snapping their heads sharply upward. At night off the Florida coast sea drums parade, crying "wop, wop, wop." Meagres sometimes sound like a hurdy-gurdy. You can hear a South American catfish "growl" for a hundred feet when he breaks water. Even Homer's fabled song of the sirens is fishy to Interior: it was probably just a shoal of weakfish warbling their weed notes wild.

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