IX. 



SEPTEMBER 



GOOD service was done to the cause of science when, 

 some fifteen or twenty years since, Eobert Ball of 

 Dublin invented the naturalist's dredge. A huge un- 

 wieldy form of the implement has indeed been long in 

 use among fishermen for the obtaining of oysters and 

 scallops ; a clumsy affair, of which the frame, furnished 

 only with a single lip, was four or five feet wide, and 

 the bag was formed of iron rings, two inches in diameter, 

 a loose and open sort of chain-mail. There was an 

 object in this last arrangement ; for while the chain- 

 work retained all oysters of a marketable size, the 

 meshes allowed all to escape which were of less dimen- 

 sions, and so these remained on the ground to grow 

 bigger for another season. 



Naturalists did gladly avail themselves of this un- 

 couth apparatus, and many valuable things were scraped 

 from the sea-bottom thereby ; but they never could 

 have used it without regret at the thought of the thou- 



