1881 WORK AS FISHERY INSPECTOR 301 



or so. However, it did us good, and after a champagne 

 lunch we thought we could not do better than repeat the 

 operation yesterday. 



I feel quite set up by finding that after standing about 

 for hours I can walk eight miles without any particular 

 fatigue. Life in the old dog yet ! Walpole is a capital 

 companion knows a great many things, and talks well 

 about them, so we get over the ground pleasantly. 



April 20. There was a long day of it yesterday look- 

 ing over things in the Exhibition till late in the afternoon, 

 and then a mighty dinner in St. Andrew's Hall given 

 by a Piscatorial Society of which my host is President. It 

 was a weary sitting of five hours with innumerable 

 speeches. Of course I had to say " a few words," and 

 if I can get a copy of the papers I will send them to you. 

 I flatter myself they were words of wisdom, though hardly 

 likely to contribute to my popularity among the fisher- 

 men. 



On the 21st he gave an address on the Herring. 

 To describe the characteristics of this fish in the 

 Eastern Counties, he says, might seem like carrying 

 coals to Newcastle ; nevertheless the fisherman's 

 knowledge is not the same as that of the man of 

 science, and includes none but the vaguest notions of 

 the ways of life of the fish and the singularities of its 

 organisation which perplexed biologists. His own 

 study of the problems connected with the herring 

 had begun nineteen years before, when he served on 

 the first of his two Fishery Commissions ; and one of 

 his chief objects in this address was to insist upon a 

 fact, borne out partly by the inquiries of the Commis- 

 sion, partly by later investigations in Europe and 

 America, which it was difficult to make people 



