Part 26

The results of his work were soon apparent. The yearly sales of English and Welsh salmon in Billingsgate market, London, before 1861, averaged about eight tons only. From 1867 to 1876 the average sale was eighty-eight tons. The sales of Irish salmon in Billingsgate, three hundred and fifty tons yearly; of Scotch salmon, over one thousand tons yearly. Thus was food provided for millions of people.

Everywhere Buckland was the friend of animals. He urged that pigs should have "pure, clean, wholesome water" to drink. He assisted at the opening of the Brighton Aquarium, a place which American visitors can never forget, and aided in the establishing of other aquaria.

In 1873, Mr. Buckland published a "History of British Fishes." All his books went through many editions. In 1874, at the Jubilee Anniversary of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he spoke against cruelty to seals.

He wrote in the "Times": "Captain David Gray, of the sealing and whaling ship Eclipse, and myself first brought forward, some three years ago, the necessity for a close time for Arctic seals. The principal sealing ground is at Jan Mayen Island, thirteen hundred miles due north from London.... The ships (sixty sail) arrive at the ice from the 15th to the 20th March, just as the young seals are born. The seal-hunters at once attack them, and the most horrible cruelty ensues. I quote Captain Gray's own words to me: 'Last year, the fleet set to work to kill the seals on March 26, 1874, and in forty-eight hours the fishing was completely over, the old seals being shot, wounded, or scared away, while thousands upon thousands of young ones were left crying piteously for their mothers. These mostly perished of famine in the snow, as they were not old enough to make worth while the trouble of killing them.

"'If you could imagine yourself surrounded by four or five hundred thousand babies, all crying at the pitch of their voices, you would have some idea of the piteous noise they make. Their cry is very like that of a human infant. These motherless seals collect into lots of five or six, and crawl about the ice, their heads fast becoming the biggest part of their bodies, searching, no doubt, to find the nourishment they stand so much in need of.'"

In 1876, an international close time was established, prohibiting the killing of seals until after April 3.

Mr. Buckland's reports on crab, lobster, herring, and other fisheries were most full and interesting. "Before the young crabs are born," he said, "the mother crab tucks up under her tail her numerous family of from one to two million coral-like eggs, and she sidles on tiptoe many a mile from her rocky home to some sandy flat in the deep sea, where her young family may flourish best. There, or perhaps on returning home, in early spring, the time for all young things to come forth, the tiny crabs burst the egg; yet so unlike their parent, that till lately they were thought some strange animalcula; goggle eyes, a hawk's beak, a scorpion's tail, a rhinoceros's horn, adorn a body fringed with legs, yet scarcely bigger than a grain of sand.

"Several strange shapes are assumed in turn ere the young crab attains the parent form. For the parents of so numerous a family it is well that nature has provided the young crabs with a strong suit of clothes, which does not wear out; but it is quickly outgrown. The young crabs shed from time to time the horny case, even to the finger-nails and eyelids; and mother Nature straightway provides, underneath, a new, soft, leathery suit, which quickly hardens into shell. Another marvel is, that the growth is, as it were, by leaps and bounds; each time it bursts its case the young crab swells suddenly to twice the size of the discarded shell.

"In crab youth several new suits are annually required. In maturer life the lady crab, it seems, is content with one new dress each year; yet is not the romance of life over. In the time of her soft-shelled weakness and seclusion, a male crab in full armor constantly attends her, guards her from danger, and solaces her in her retirement. An old crab's shell, covered sometimes with barnacles, or with oysters of several years' growth, shows that the patriarch has outlived the change of fashions which occupied his youth."

The report on herring showed that eight hundred million fish are taken yearly in Scotland, by more than seven thousand boats.

"The Log-Book of a Fisherman and Zooelogist" was published in 1875, and a new edition of "White's Natural History of Selborne," to which Buckland added many original observations. Most of his writing was done on the cars, on his way to different places to give lectures or attend to official business.

In 1878, he was appointed one of the commissioners to inquire into the sea fisheries of England and Wales, which furnish so much food for the people. Over a hundred million soles are sold yearly in London alone, besides fifty million plaice and whiting, and ten million eels. Mr. Buckland's correspondence with many countries had become extensive. He had been elected a member of various societies, and had received many gold medals, for his wide scientific knowledge and its practical application.

In December, 1879, he writes, "This Christmas week, I regret to say, I shall not have the opportunity of spending my time up to my neck in water, collecting salmon eggs for Australia or New Zealand, from one or other of our northern rivers, or in one of the southern rivers, getting trout eggs for the Thames. I must say I very much enjoy collecting salmon and trout eggs; it is very cold, and, at the same time, very hard work, but I very much prefer it to indoors and the fireside."

The exposure of this kind of work is seen by his description of it. "Here is a list of my 'Spawning kit.' First, the waterproof dress; this very useful garment is in fact a diver's dress, and, when properly put on, admits not a drop of water. It has, however, one fault, _it is apt to freeze_ when I am out of the water, and then one feels encased, as it were, in a suit of inflexible armor. Second, the spawning tins.... Third, a long, shallow basket.... Fourth, house-flannel, cut into lengths of one yard; this is absolutely necessary to hold the struggling salmon. Those who are unaccustomed to spawn salmon have an awkward habit of putting their fingers into the gills of the fish, and if the fish's gills are injured and bleed, he suffers much from it. I never to my knowledge killed a fish in my life while spawning it. Fifth, dry towels; these are most necessary, as the slime from the salmon makes one's hands very slippery ... besides which, wiping the hands warms them, and, when working in the water at this time of year, the cold to the hands and arms is fearful.... Eleventh, ordinary baggage, and especially a bottle of scented hair-oil, with which to well anoint the chest and arms and tips of ears, when working in the water; a most excellent and serviceable plan. I took this hint from the Esquimaux."

Frank Buckland's last Fishery Report was made in March, 1880, containing an interesting description of the anatomy of the salmon, its food, habits, and the like.

Mr. Buckland had brought on lung trouble by constant exposure and tireless energy, and must have foreseen the end. At first it seemed hard to him that he should be taken in the midst of his best work, but he said, "God is so good, so very good to the little fishes, I do not believe he would let their inspector suffer shipwreck at last. I am going a long journey, where I think I shall see a great many curious animals. This journey I must go alone."

He had before this written in his diary: "I think it not improbable that, in a future state, the mind will be allowed a greater scope of knowledge, and the gates of omniscience will be thrown open to it, so that those things which it now sees through a glass, darkly, will be opened to the view and understanding. O most glorious reward, for a mind occupied here on earth in investigating the wonderful works of the Creator, from the magnificent and stupendously grand scene of geology, and the theory of the heavens, to the minute and delicate construction of a microscopic animalcule, or the immeasurably fine thread of a plant!"

He died December 19, 1880, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, on Christmas Eve.

His last book, "Notes and Jottings from Animal Life," was published soon after his death.

No wonder that the noble son of the Dean of Westminster is remembered and loved. A friend wrote, after his death: "Energy was only one of Mr. Buckland's characteristics. His kindliness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven already, so that he was not required to forgive him any more.

"He could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a woman. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his office, he found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been turned out of her place that morning, as unequal to her duties; she had no money and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of the guard of the train. His nature was so simple and generous that he did not even seem to realize that he had done an exceptionally kind action."

To read of such a life as this makes us trust humanity, and reassures us that there are many, very many noble and lovely characters in the world, both men and women. While we need good judgment and common sense, so as to discriminate wisely, we need also the sweet, sunny nature which, with some measure of ideality, sees rose colors amid the sombre tints of life. We usually find in other hearts what we cultivate in our own.

Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton's Famous Books.

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POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS.

By SARAH K. BOLTON. Short biographical sketches of George Peabody, Michael Faraday, Samuel Johnson, Admiral Farragut, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Garibaldi, President Lincoln, and other noted persons who, from humble circumstances, have risen to fame and distinction, and left behind an imperishable record. Illustrated with 24 portraits. 12mo. $1.50.

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_Latest Volume in the Series._

STORIES FROM LIFE. By SARAH K. BOLTON. A book of short stories, charming and helpful. 12mo. $1.25.

FROM HEART AND NATURE. Poems by SARAH K. and CHARLES K. BOLTON. 16mo. Gilt top, $1.00.

THE INEVITABLE, AND OTHER POEMS. By SARAH K. BOLTON. 16mo. With portrait. Gilt top, $1.00.

MRS. SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON

Comes from good New England ancestry; descended on her father's side from Henry Knowles, who came to Rhode Island from London, England, in 1635, and on her mother's side from Colonel Nathaniel Stanley, of Hartford, Conn., one of the leading men of the colony, and from Colonel William Pynchon, one of the twenty-six incorporators of Massachusetts Bay Colony. She was graduated from the Hartford Seminary, established by Catharine Beecher; published a volume of poems, and in 1866 married Charles E. Bolton, A.M., of Massachusetts, an Amherst College graduate of '65. They removed to Cleveland, O., where, besides writing for various periodicals, she did much charitable work. She was secretary of the Woman's Christian Association, and Asst. Cor. Sec. of the Nat. W. C. T. U. She has twice visited Europe, spending two years in England, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Norway and Sweden, studying literary and educational matters, and the means used by employers for the mental and moral elevation of their employees. On the latter subject she read a paper before the American Social Science Association in 1883. She was for three years one of the editors of the Boston _Congregationalist_. She prepared several small books for the Cleveland Educational Bureau, conducted gratuitously by her husband, and described by Dr. Washington Gladden in the _Century_ magazine, January, 1885. The Bureau was discontinued when Mr. Bolton gave his time to lecturing. Miss Frances E. Willard says of Mrs. Bolton, "She is one of the best-informed women in America, the chief woman biographer of our times."

T. Y. CROWELL & CO., New York and Boston.

End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Men of Science, by Sarah K. Bolton