ments the fall of Dindorff in the affaire únoduσa; but he is ready to kill the fatted calf for him when he does justice to owoel. Devoted Johnsonians have declared that they could draw a portrait of their idol from the definitions in his Dictionary. Similarly they who have had, even for a brief period, the privilege of the acquaintance of the amiable Scotch scholar who has passed away, will find something more than the dry bones of his scholarship in "Greek Verbs, Irregular and Defective."

From The Saturday Review. THE CAITIFF CATFISH.

OUR institutions are indeed being Americanized. In some respects Britannia capta has even outrun her conqueror, and it is possible, though we hope improbable, that the land of the New York Herald may have to complain of the Anglicizing of her newspapers. But from one American institution our country is free-long may it be untouched by the invader! It seems almost incredible that any one should wish to introduce the accursed catfish to our native shores. Yet we read, with horror, that "a consignment of catfish has been received by the National Fish Culture Association from the Fish Commission of the United States." Is America to be allowed to export the paupers and criminals of her brooks and rivers into our innocent waters? If mere sport is the object of the National Fish Culture Association, perhaps they intend to set a dogfish at the catfish, and enjoy the brutal pleasures of the one-sided conflict. The Council, according to the Field, "will not introduce these or any strange fish into English waters without full knowledge and consideration." This sounds too like Mr. Gladstone's reserves about the House of Lords. The Council will think twice, or even thrice, before introducing catfish. Perish the thought! One might as well say that cholera, or pellagra, or the plague, or the Colorado beetle, or the man-eating tiger, will not be introduced “without full knowledge and consideration."

In the first place, almost all of these acclimatizations are errors. People in charge of our rivers should be like hostesses who "don't introduce." Where trout exist you can do nothing but harm by bringing in parvenus. Some lunatics brought in pike in certain Scotch waters. The con

sequence is that trout are like the palæo lithic peoples after an eruption of men in the bronze age- that is to say, all but exterminated. Even grayling should be left where they are natives. They have come into the Clyde, where they are de spised and detested, more or less, by the Caledonians, who indeed, despite their hospitality, rarely receive such strangers gladly. And grayling, the fine ladies of the waters, are not to be compared to the hideous, voracious, plebeian, un-English catfish, whose very name condemns it. Even birds, beasts, and insects comparatively harmless at home-sparrows, rabbits, and so forth do inestimable mischief when planted in America, Australia, or New Zealand. The catfish, the white catfish, is desperately ugly, “a gar. bage eating bottom-feeder, ill-looking, of no consideration in the matter of sport, and not worthy of introducing where it would eat up the food of our own fishes," and probably eat up our own fishes as well. From a passing notice in "Huckleberry Finn," we guess that the catfish may grow to about the size of a man of middle height. If this be so, even bathing would be unsafe in rivers infested by catfish. From Mr. Frank Stockton's account, in "Rudder Grange," of the capture of a catfish, we infer that the incident resembles the catching of a Tartar. Of course if the brute does not rise to fly, it will cause less annoyance to anglers of the right sort; but over here it might change its habits and acquire a passion for black gnats or March browns. As to its edible qualities, the catfish is said to resemble the eel, and that is saying enough. We have a sufficiency of eels, and need not reinforce our "food stuffs" with catfish. "At present they are curiosities on view;" we wish that they could be exhibited stuffed. Perhaps a pair of catfish may escape from South Kensington, through the waters with floating electric lights, may reach the Serpentine, may invade the river, may push their way into the Kennett, the Wandle, and so forth, and finally the kitten fish of the species may get into the Tweed, and the melancholy mewing of the catfish will be heard where the swan on sweet St. Mary's Loch pitches into the angler. There is, were it wanted, another proof of the folly of those accli. matizations. Because Wordsworth put a property swan on St. Mary's, impractica ble real swans have been introduced, and, like the catfish, they are distinguished nuisances.

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