CHAPTEE IX. 



COLLECTING FISHES. 



As to the methods of procuring your fish, I have very little to 

 say. In all my collecting I have never yet seen the time when 

 it did not pay far better to buy fish specimens of professional 

 fishermen than to turn fisherman myself. With an enterprising 

 set of fishermen, much may be done by offering to purchase th 

 strange and curious species that are often unfit for food, and are 

 usually thrown away. Be first in the fish-market when the day's 

 catch is being landed ; be on hand persistently, in season and 

 out of season, and by so doing you will have the first chance to 

 buy the handsome sharks, rays, rhinobati, etc., before they are 

 ruthlessly cut up and sold piecemeal. Mask your enthusiasm ; 

 learn to dissemble, and then you will not need to pay more than 

 the ruling market prices, even for the specimens which are of 

 the highest scientific value. In Ceylon I once bought a remark- 

 able shark-ray for three shillings, which I sold again, almost im- 

 mediately, for $75 ; but it almost cost me a fit of apoplexy to 

 control my feelings while the bargain was being made. I 

 wanted to give three cheers for Rhamphobatis ancylostomus ! 



FIELD NOTES ON FISHES. Colors. In collecting and preserv- 

 ing fishes, happy is he who can sketch with a pencil, and thrice 

 happy is he to whom tho gods have given the ability to paint 

 in water-colors. If you are blessed with this ability, the correct 

 and imperative thing to do in collecting is to make a good out- 

 line sketch of each species, and color it carefully from a perfectly 

 fresh specimen. Then, when the glorious colors of the living 

 fish vanish like magic in the alcohol, or in the air, as the case 

 may be, there is your permanent and indisputable record, a 

 thing of great value to science until a better one is produced. 

 At the National Museum it has for years been the policy of 



