Fis/i Culturists Association. 



of them, in imagination, might make your mouths water ; some, 

 if actually experimented upon, might have quite a contrary 

 effect. I trust as to the crucial test, for " the proof of the 

 pudding is the eating of it," that the gentlemen here present 

 will have ample opportunity of forming their own opinion at 

 the dinner to be given to-day at the Lafayette restaurant. I 

 may say that since there are curious wines which connoisseurs 

 admire, so are there curious fish. I am led to suppose that in 

 making their awards as to preparations of fish as food, the 

 judges very wisely did not confine themselves to any pent-up 

 Utica of taste. White bait at Greenwich is good, and, undoubt- 

 edly, seal meat at Omenack, in Greenland, is excellent. If 

 preparations of fish from Sweden, Norway, or from Spain or 

 Portugal, did not suit American palates, such might have been 

 admirably adapted to the wants of more northern or southern 

 climes. De gustibus nan est dispittandiim, I suppose, was taken in 

 its broadest latitude. Now, there were those Chinese shark-fins, 

 certainly not savory as to smell, still we have the assurance 

 from the Chinese Commissioner, that made into a soup with 

 barley, shark-fins are unequalled as stock. I think, too, shark 

 eating in the United States has a representative here who has 

 declared that portions of a young shark are excellent as food. 

 Of class 643, "Crustaceans, Echinodeons, etc.," the samples were 

 numerous. Of class 644, "Mollusks, Oysters, Clams, etc." there 

 were innumerable specimens. In class 646, which includes 

 ising-glass and sounds, some very beautiful preparations may be 

 seen in Agricultural Hall and in the Brewers' Hall — American 

 ising-glass from the hake being used to a large extent to clear our 

 lager beer — the superb specimens of ising-glass exhibited by 

 Russia, all worthy of notice. In class 647 are " Instruments of 

 Fishing ;" the biggest show the world has ever seen is full of 

 them. From the huge drag-net used bv the Dutchman on his 



