108 A NEW CURATORSHIP. 



Edinburgh to arrange with the Goodsirs for the ana- 

 tomical display of his collection as illustrative of the 

 zoology of the iEgean Sea. 



In June 1842, Goodsir was asked to go north to 

 the Dornoch Firth to examine its zoology, so as to give 

 in a report, and to furnish evidence in an important 

 trial about salmon stake-nets. He was accompanied by 

 Mr. James Wilson, and enjoyed his visit exceedingly. 



In January 1843 John Goodsir was asked by 

 Forbes to go before the Justiciary Court of Edinburgh, 

 and save Mr. Yarrell the trouble of leaving London, and 

 there explain the difference between a sprat and a 

 herring ; an anatomical question resting on the 

 number of vertebrae * — the sprat having forty-eight, the 

 herring fifty-six — the position of the ventral .fin and 

 serrated abdominal line in the sprat, the carinated but 

 not serrated belly in the herring, and other minor 

 points — as Dr. Neill considered sprats grew into her- 

 rings and that difference of vertebrae was a mere dif- 

 ference of age. 



On the 12th May 1843 Professor Syme wrote from 

 the University to Goodsir, offering him the curatorship 

 " of the collection that has been or may be formed, 

 through the means placed at the disposal of the 

 Medical Faculty — salary £150 a-year, the appointment 



* Some fishermen of Lord John Scott's had heen summoned for netting 

 herrings when fishing for sprats in the Firth of Forth, hence the trial before 

 the court. Lord John remarked on Dr. Neill's opinion, that he never heard 

 Methuselah had more vertebrae in his back-bone when he died than when he 

 was a little boy, and that he was sure it was a ruse on the part of the old 

 doctor in favour of the cormorants of Canonmills. 



