LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 493 



of St. George's Banks, which I have just completed),! never heard 

 of their being dissected by other instruments than knives and forks, 

 and then, when properly cut up (with salad), and well mixed 

 with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard, they are, as you know, 

 extremely delicious. 



Dickerson. Yes, my dear commodore j but the scientific bodies 

 tell me that these animals are so important, in a geological as well 

 as a zoological point of view (thes,e are their very words), that 

 although, for my own part, I think, with the old proverb, that " the 

 proof of the pudding is in the eating," yet it is doubtful whether it 

 is expedient to strike off this branch altogether ; because, while 

 we can easily declare to the country, on the authority of our com- 

 mander, that no insects live in the sea, it wouldn't do to say that 

 crustacse don't. If we did, we should have all the fishermen in 

 our faces directly. Now our object, you know, is plausibly to un- 

 dermine every subdivision of the corps; some on the ground of 

 want of importance ; others, when that argument will not hold 

 good, on the score of there being no field to work on ; and thus, 

 by degrees, to get rid of the whole of them. 



Wilkes. That's my idea exactly; and, were the matter left to me, 

 I could readily make an efficient scientific corps out of the middies, 

 by putting them under the tuition of the assistant surgeon for a 

 few days. As regards the crustacce, I would set the middies to 

 work, occasionally, of a Sunday afternoon, for instance, to haul 

 them up with dredges, and then, after putting by the duplicates to 

 be boiled for the officers' suppers, we would have the uniques bar- 

 relled up to be sent home. When they arrived, your excellency 

 (you would, I hope, have Paulding's place back again before that 

 time) might look up some naturalist of good talents and small in- 

 come to work them up by the time the expedition should return. 

 I promise you I will adopt all his views as my own, include them 

 in my work, and do his judgment the credit of fathering the- whole 

 with my own name, without inquiry, which you will see is no 

 small compliment, seeing that I shall be blamed for all the mistakes, 

 as w T ell as commended by the scientific world for all the new views 

 and valuable details the work may contain. 



Dickerson* That will do precisely ; and as for armelides,. and 

 arachnides, and myriapodes, and all the other podes, and ides, and 

 ologies that they have piled on Randall (fact is, I never heard be- 



