The Zoologist — December, 18G6. 505 



Glances into the Icthyology of the County Dublin. 

 By Harry Blake-Kmox, Esq. 



No. 1. 



If Oiuilhology and Entomology are badly worked out in Ireland, 

 how very backward must our Ichthyology be? and so it is. Among 

 our Irish naturalists we counted some true men in this Science, 

 but they have passed away, and have left few disciples after them. 

 Many book ichthyologists there may be, and some cabinet ones too, 

 but there are very few of the real true hard-working teach-myself sort, 

 who work the sea themselves, and do not trust to chance sea-shore 

 waifs and market-stalls; yes, these are very hw, and is it not a pity? 

 Entomology and Ornithology have almost become bye-words, so 

 greatly are they slandered ; for any person who pins out a butterfly 

 for its gaudy wings, now-a-days, is an "entomologist;" and the man 

 who destroys the worn-out straggler, or boasts in these pages of killing 

 without pity or remorse a flock of some rare bird, claims to be aa 

 " ornithologist." With the ichthyologist it is not so ; he is almost in- 

 variably a man of science, or an ichthyologist in its true sense, and 

 works out the fishes with a naturalist's right feelings. Few make col- 

 lections of fishes except for scientific ends, because to the mere 

 collector they are loo "dirty" a subject, and lose all their gay colours 

 when dead; spirits of wine, though simple, is too expensive and in- 

 convenient, and besides to the eye-" naturalist" the fishes become par- 

 boiled and lose their beautj'. Stuffing is enormously expensive, unless 

 the art lies in the collector, and who can stuff a fish? Very k\v i 

 though I do knovv one whose powers this way are past belief 

 (Mr. Thomas Cullen, of Trinity College, Dublin). Still no one can 

 retain the beautiful life lints, so that specimens are no good to any 

 one but the naturalist. To these reasons may be assigned the cause 

 of so great an apathy on this subject, but still it should not be so. 

 Fully convinced of its difficulties, still 1 predict that if I could meet 

 with assistance from various parts of Ireland, Yarrell or Thompson 

 would be no books of reference for the Irish ichthyologist in the future. 

 I would therefore entreat that communications may be made to me by 

 those who will not publish them themselves. I know that youth is 

 despised^by the scientific, and is often patronized by the men it could 

 teach ; so it is not self-opinionated age I would exhort, but the young 



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