so In the South Seas 



III 



the Gold Fields. She was paralysed at the scientific 

 manner in which he, a most ruffianly looking 

 scoundrel of a miner, described the fish which he 

 had caught ; and took him in and was good to him, 

 the old dear, when he was ill. Her brother was the 

 Consul at Lisbon when I was there in the St. George.' 



The following notes were found written in pencil 

 in an old manuscript book : — 



' Fish whenever you can, my dear sir, and always 

 fish with fine tackle, for some have in this way 

 entertained angels unawares in the forms of wondrous 

 fishes ; and some of the loveliest of little fishes — and 

 they are, I really believe, the loveliest, as far as colour 

 is concerned, of all created beings — can only be 

 caught with fine tackle. The loveliest of all, how- 

 ever, can be caught with no tackle, barring a net, 

 and then only with difficulty — that cobalt blue coral 

 fish, and the chsetodons, are very hard to come by. 



' You can have no idea of what a glorious pleasure 

 there is in fishing in a new sea in ignorance of what 

 you are going to catch, more particularly if you have 

 the slightest interest in ichthyology. Shall I ever 

 forget the moment when I saw my first Chimcera 

 australis handed into the boat ! A fish which I 

 had marvelled at from my boyhood upwards, and 

 almost fancied to be the dream of some mad 

 naturalist, so wild and weird was his delineation — 

 not half so wild and weird, however, as his reality. 

 At the moment when I held up my first cavalli — 

 apparently, like a dyer's hand, subdued to what he 



