I 



SKETCH OF FRANK BUCKLAND. 405 



of his experiments in hatching, of consultation, and of the giving of 

 instructions to others who had become interested in the enterprise. 

 He showed his apparatus and explained it at the exhibitions. He lect- 

 ured at the Royal Institution on the subject, and gave the grave mem- 

 bers of that body the novel experience of laughing at the racy humor 

 with which the new science was explained, "while the earnestness 

 with which the national importance of the subject was enforced was 

 none the less impressive." The substance of this lecture was after- 

 ward expanded into a book on " Fish-hatching." He was invited up 

 into Ireland to see what was the matter with some salmon-fisheries in 

 Galway. Seeing a very fine salmon-ladder, he climbed down into it 

 and imagined himself a salmon, congratulating himself on narrow es- 

 capes from the nets and crevices below, and thinking how very desir- 

 able it would be to get up to his autumn quarters in Lough Corrib. 

 To preserve and make j^opularly visible the results of his investiga- 

 tions into fish-breeding, he made the series of casts of the roe of fish 

 and of the forms of fish at different stages of growth, which is exhib- 

 ited at the South Kensington Museum. He next studied oyster-culture, 

 and gave lectures, scientific and populai*, on that. These occupations 

 prepared the way for his appointment as Fish Commissioner, and ren- 

 dered it the most appropriate one that the Government could make. 



In studying the problem of fish-passes for salmon, to which he gave 

 a great deal of attention, he made it a principle to enter, so far as was 

 possible to man, into the feelings of a salmon, as he did at the Galway 

 ladder ; and so thoroughly did he carry out the principle that he be- 

 came " as an inspector almost amphibious, wading the pools below the 

 weirs, and feeling the force and direction of the current. . . . No 

 wonder, then, when it was publicly stated that, in his evidence before 

 the House of Commons, he had leaned rather to the interest of the 

 millers than of the salmon-fisheries, he protested that his statements 

 had either been misconstrued or not understood. 'Having placed my- 

 self as a shield over the salmon interests, I have, as is the fate of 

 shields, received most of the aiTOws.' " With regard to the cultivation 

 of the English rivers, he saw that the conflicting interests could be 

 reconciled without injury to any ; and he strove unceasingly, and with 

 no little success, to propagate the belief among all classes that they 

 were each and all interested in the preservation of salmon. He con- 

 tinually lifted up his voice against the pollution of rivers, and told the 

 people of Gloucester that the Chinese, who use everything in the way 

 of manure, call the English barbarians because they pour their sewage 

 into the rivers. The beginning of the illness from which Mr. Buckland 

 died dates from January, 1879, when he was attacked with inflamma- 

 tion of the lungs after having been engaged in packing eggs from 

 Australia in the ice-house of the steamship Durham. He was again 

 attacked in November of the same year, after exposure in a violent 

 snow-storm following the last inquiry it was his privilege to hold, 



