252 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



was driving storms. Speaking of fishing, they men- 

 tioned the catfish. I asked if they could procure me 

 one. I wanted one particularly for the ear-bones. 

 Some fishing-boats were coming past us, but our men 

 said that none of them would acknowledge that they 

 had one, as no one would admit that they ever tasted 

 one, although, they said, many of the fishermen did 

 taste them on the sly and used them regularly. They 

 said they could find us one when we got into town. 

 We gave one of the men what he said he thought he 

 would get it for. We were detained some little time 

 on the way back to the hotel, and upon reaching it 

 there was a large catfish on a stand in the hall. The 

 waiter said that it was for us, and inquired if anything 

 was to be done with it. I said that I only wanted 

 the head, and that he might do whatever he liked 

 with the rest. Accordingly we got the head packed 

 up as a part of our luggage. Next morning after 

 breakfast we paid our bill and left for home, the 

 waiters no doubt thinking that we were queer cus- 

 tomers, and wondering what we could want with the 

 superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum, or what we 

 were going to do with the bags of clay from the 

 brickfield, and the two bags of black glair from the 

 river-basin, but, above all, what in the world we were 

 going to do with the head of the catfish ! " 



Had he explained that out of the whole fish he 

 wanted nothing but two little pointed bones scarcely 

 a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of an inch in 

 breadth, and that he regarded these as part of the 

 acoustic apparatus of the animal, the waiters might 

 still have been sceptical as to his sanity. 



