One of the seminal books of my childhood. This is an enthusiastic account of a young woman's original research in Ichthyology, particularly of the poisonous fish in tropical waters. Today we would call her a trail blazer for women in science. Her book inspired me to specialize in marine biology and acted as an invisible role model for a young girl aiming to become a scientist. Its writing style may seem dated to kids nowadays, but the narrative is interesting and approachable.

I re-read this book in 2024. It is still an effective memoir of an educational journey to scientific research and achievements. Nevertheless, there was no mention of the lack of mentorship that was even then such a roadblock for women in research science. In retrospect, I was also a bit disappointed in the descriptions of the Red Sea villages and lives of the natives, though certainly there is mention of these aspects. The descriptions of how the Red Sea is underfished was a strange observation by today's standards. I was also more aware of how everything that was 'rare' was harvested for preservation or dissection. Times and attitudes didn't change in those parts until too late. Not that I castigate the author for this, but now the situation rankles.

The narrative was always very self-focused and centred on action and anecdotes, rather than philosophically describing the locale and research findings more expansively. I suppose one could find Clark's original journal articles in an archive to discover the details of her marine studies However, the flavour of the research would have been better conveyed in the memoir. ( )

Memoir about her younger years, when Eugenie Clark as a budding marine biologist travelled the world's oceans to collect fishes for science... Her travels for study took her to the South Sea Islands where native fishermen would help her find rare fish. Even when language was a barrier, her requests were usually met with enthusiasm. Many of the natives she met had never seen a white woman before, much less one who was a scientist and went fishing. I liked reading the descriptions of strange, unusual fish and other marine life. The constant killing for collections, not so much. Even though I understand her reasoning why it was important to get all the specimens out of particular chosen tidepool, it is still a bit distressing to read of how the entire population of the pool would be knocked woozy with poison dropped in the water, and then promptly dropped into preserving fluid.... which happened to impress the locals very much. She made careful inquiries of the locals at each island which fishes were good eating (and often sampled them, including raw) and which they assumed were poisonous, and sent samples off to a lab which tested them for poison. It was a survey to find out which fish naturally carried venom, which were only poisonous in certain locales or at certain times of year due to what they ate, and which were not poisonous at all, even though the locals assumed so. At different times she was stationed in marine laboratories, and describes several extended stays in Hawaii, Guam, and on the Red Sea. She explains some experiments done on captive fishes in the lab- to study for the first time the reproductive behavior of guppies, and to learn more about visual memory using marine gobies. Those were pretty interesting. Sharks also come into the book, at the very end when she also talks briefly about meeting her future husband Ilias.

I am not sure which book I like best (comparing her later work, Lady and the Sharks)- this one is certainly less formal, being just as much a travel diary as it is a description of fishing and diving for scientific inquiry. Mostly, it is an intriguing look at marine fishes through the eyes of one who studied them with a lifelong passion.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

I bought this book at a used book sale in middle school, and immediately loved it. Tales of adventure in the south seas! In the name of science! The writing is crystal clear, and middle school me ate up the descriptions of sorting specimens in the library just as much as spearfishing in the Pacific. Do the conversations about how the Red Sea is "underfished" bother me now? Not really. It's still a great science autobiography, and, to boot, now an interesting snapshot of the post-war Navy and the research environment of the late 40s and early 50s. ( )