12 LECTURE I. 



besides yourselves: gulls, porpoises, and other 

 fish follow and feed on them, and yet nothing 

 drives them from the shoals. It is the in- 

 credible numbers alone which keep up the 

 annual migration. 



Before I conclude, I wish to call your atten- 

 tion to an unusual occurrence which took place 

 along our coasts about four years ago, and 

 which some of you may, perhaps, be able to 

 give some explanation of. At the time re- 

 ferred to a very heavy fall of snow took place, 

 and soon afterwards great numbers of conger- 

 eels and many other fish were picked up per- 

 fectly blind. Now, some of these eels and fish 

 were examined by Professor Owen, the head of 

 the Natural History Department in the British 

 Museum, and second to no one as a scientific 

 anatomist. His report was that the eyes of the 

 fish he examined were covered with an opaque 

 substance, which produced total blindness. This 

 curious fact was not confined to fish off our 

 Brighton coast. At Southampton, and many 

 other places, grey mullets and other fish came 

 on shore perfectly blind ; and I picked up what, 

 I believe, is called the parrot-fish, in the same 

 state. It is not easy to account for this sudden 



