cup. xiv.]| The Hquoreal Needlejish. 259 
it to her father, who found it to be a splendid specimen of 
the equoreal needle-fish (Syngnathus equoreus), a fish that 
had never before been found in the Moray Firth. 
A thought may here strike the reader. How was it 
that Edward knew that there were six gobies found along 
the coasts of Great Britain? How did he know that the 
equoreal needle-fish had never been found in the Moray 
Firth before? And, last of all, how was it that he knew 
the scientific names of the fishes, the zoophytes, and the 
BROADSEA, NEAR FRASERBURGH, 
crustacea, which he collected? The names were, for the 
most part, Latin. Yet he had never learned Latin. He 
must, then, have learned them from books. No: he had 
no books. He often ardently desired books, but he was 
too poor to buy them. His earnings were scarcely sufii- 
cient to enable him to feed and clothe his children. Under 
such circumstances, a man can not buy books. Sometimes 
his children fared very badly, especially when he was laid 
up by illness. At such times they had almost to starve. 
How was it, then, that under these difficult circumstances, 
and amidst his almost constant poverty, Edward was en- 
abled to carry on the study of science without the aid of 
books? He did so by the help of correspondents at a dis- 
