Fi<h Citlturists Association. 



I cannot presume to give you anything more than the lighter 

 idea of Group V., which treated principally of fish, the products 

 derived from them, with the apparatus used in catching them. 

 For more particular information as to the divisions of the group, 

 I would direct your attention to Mr. G. Brown Goode's most 

 careful classification of the collection to illustrate the animal 

 resources of the United States. Group V. was split up into nine 

 classes, beginning with No. 641, and ending with No. 649. 



No. 640 was " Marine animals, seals, cetaceans, and specimens 

 living in aquaria, or stuffed, salted, or otherwise preserved." I 

 must here refer you to the wonderful display made by the 

 Smithsonian Institution in the Government Building. It can be 

 safely stated that before this Centennial year there has never 

 been brought together so magnificent a collection. Its thorough- 

 ness and practical usefulness quite manifest, and allow me to 

 explain how. As we are not quite well posted in Chinese fish, 

 it became the duty of a person attached to the group to endeavor 

 to find out what fish China used principally as food. Thanks to 

 Mr. Knight, the Chinese Commissioner, the person whose 

 business it was to grope into the Chinese fish darkness, was 

 provided with an intelligent Chinese interpreter, and he was 

 backed up by a learned Chinaman, undoubtedly a savant, 

 because this latter person was to write a book or maybe deliver 

 only speeches on the Exhibition in Chinese for the benefit of 

 Chinamen. I think richer an unprofitable evening was spent 

 between this American person and the Chinamen, though it was 

 not uninteresting. But China fish was a closed book. It was 

 apparent that in Chin;; there must be twenty different names for 

 the same fish, in which peculiarity they do not differ from our 

 own people. At last a happy thought struck the person who 

 wanted "to know, you know." Next day he took his two 

 Chinamen among the plaster casts of fish in the Goverment 



