Uncommon Grounds The History of

Coffee and How It Transformed Our

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 Copyright

Copyright © 2010 by Mark Pendergrast

Introduction to the New Edition copyright © 2019 by Mark
Pendergrast
Cover design by Ann Kirchner
Cover image: Cultura Creative / Gallery Stock
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Basic Books
Hachette Book Group
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www.basicbooks.com

First Edition: May 1999

Third Trade Paperback Edition: July 2019

Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a

subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Basic Books name and
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Pendergrast, Mark.
Uncommon grounds : the history of coffee and how it transformed
our world / Mark Pendergrast.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-01836-9 (alk. paper)
1. Coffee—History. 2. Coffee industry—History. I. Title.
TX415.P45 2010
338.1’7373—dc22
2010014683

ISBNs: 978-0-465-03631-8 (hardcover), 978-1-541-64642-1 (ebook),

978-1-5416-9938-0 (2019 paperback)

E3-20190524-JV-NF-ORI
 CONTENTS

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: The Oriflama Harvest
Introduction: Puddle Water or Panacea?
Introduction to the New Edition
Map

PART ONE
SEEDS OF CONQUEST

1 Coffee Colonizes the World

2 The Coffee Kingdoms
3 The American Drink
4 The Great Coffee Wars of the Gilded Age
5 Hermann Sielcken and Brazilian Valorization
6 The Drug Drink

PART TWO
CANNING THE BUZZ
7 Growing Pains
8 Making the World Safe for Coffee
9 Selling an Image in the Jazz Age
10 Burning Beans, Starving Campesinos
11 Showboating the Depression
12 Cuppa Joe

PART THREE
BITTER BREWS

13 Coffee Witch Hunts and Instant Nongratification

14 Robusta Triumphant

PART FOUR
ROMANCING THE BEAN

15 A Scattered Band of Fanatics

16 The Black Frost
17 The Specialty Revolution
18 The Starbucks Experience
19 Final Grounds

Photos
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
Appendix: How to Brew the Perfect Cup
Notes on Sources
List of Interviews
Illustration Credits
Praise for Uncommon Grounds
Index
To the memories of Alfred
Peet (1920–2007), coffee
curmudgeon supreme,
and Ernesto Illy (1925–
2008), espresso master
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

Tap here to learn more.

This detailed engraving was one of the first accurate portrayals of the exotic coffee plant,
published in 1716 in Voyage de l’Arabie Heureuse
 The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to
espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions
of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
—Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case (1995)

The smell of roasting coffee hit me like a waft of spice.… It was a smell
halfway between mouth-watering and eye-watering, a smell as dark as
burning pitch; a bitter, black, beguiling perfume that caught at the back of
the throat, filling the nostrils and the brain. A man could become addicted
to that smell, as quick as any opium.
—Anthony Capella, The Various Flavors of Coffee (2008)
 PROLOGUE

The Oriflama Harvest

San Marcos region, Guatemala. Picking coffee berries (known as

cherries) for the first time, I struggle to keep my balance on the
precipitous hillside. My basket, or canasta, is tied around my waist.
As Herman, my caporal (supervisor), requested, I try to pick only the
rich red cherries, but sometimes I accidentally knock loose a green
one. I’ll have to sort them later.
I pop the skin of a ripe coffee cherry open in my mouth and savor
the sweet mucilage. It takes a bit of tongue work to get down to the
tough-skinned parchment protecting each bean. Like peanuts, coffee
beans usually grow in facing pairs. Spitting out the parchment, I
finally get the two beans, which are covered by a diaphanous silver
skin. In some cases where the soil lacks sufficient boron, I might
have found only one bean, called a peaberry, considered by some to
possess a slightly more concentrated taste. I spit out the seeds, too
hard to chew.
I hear other harvesters—whole families of them—chatting and
singing in Spanish. This is a happy time, when the year’s hard work
of pruning, fertilizing, weeding, tending, and repairing roads and
water channels comes down to ripe coffee. I sing a song with a few
Spanish phrases: mi amor, mi corazón.
When I stop, I hear giggles and applause. Unwittingly, I have
attracted a group of kids, who now wander off to resume picking or
pestering their parents. Children begin helping with the harvest
when they are seven or eight. Though many campesinos keep their
children out of school at other times for other reasons, it’s no
coincidence that school vacation in Guatemala coincides with the
coffee harvest.
I am 4,500 feet above sea level on Oriflama, the coffee finca
(plantation) owned by Betty Hannstein Adams. Betty’s grandfather,
Bernhard Hannstein (“Don Bernardo”), arrived in Guatemala over a
hundred years ago, one of many German immigrants who pioneered
the country’s coffee production. Oriflama, which contains over four
hundred acres, is half of the original farm, which was called La Paz.
Most of the coffee trees are caturra and catuai, hybrids that are
easier to harvest because they are shorter and more compact than
the older bourbon variety. Still, I have to bend some branches down
to get at them. After half an hour I have picked half a canasta,
about twelve pounds of cherries that, after processing to remove the
pulp, mucilage, and parchment, will produce two pounds of green
coffee beans. When roasted, they will lose as much as 20 percent
more in weight. Still, I have picked enough to make several pots of
fine coffee. I’m feeling pretty proud until Herman, who stands just
over five feet and weighs a little over one hundred pounds, shows
up with a full canasta and gently chides me for being so slow.
The farm is beautiful, covered with the green, glossy-leafed
coffee trees, prehistoric tree ferns and Spanish daggers along the
roadside (to prevent erosion), rolling hills, invisible harvesters
calling, children laughing, birds chirruping, big shade trees dappling
hillsides, springs and streams. As in other high-altitude coffee-
growing areas, the temperature never strays far from 75°F.
In the distance I can see the volcano, Santa María, and the
smoke from the smaller cone, Santiago, where in 1902 a side
eruption exploded, burying Oriflama under a foot of ash and killing
all the songbirds. “Oh God, what a sight,” wrote Betty’s grandmother,
Ida Hannstein, soon after. “As far as the eye could see everything
was blue and gray and dead, like a mammoth cemetery.”
It is difficult to imagine that scene now. The nitrogen-fixing shade
trees—inga, poro, and others—along with the groves of cypresses
and oaks and the macadamia trees grown to diversify output,
provide a much-needed habitat for migratory birds. At breakfast I
had melon, cream, and honey that came from the plantation; also
black beans, rice, and of course, coffee.
By 4:00 P.M. the harvest day is over, and everyone brings bulging
bags of coffee cherries to the beneficio (processing plant) to be
weighed. In other parts of Guatemala, the Mayan Indians are the
primary harvesters, but here they are local ladinos, whose blood
combines an Indian and Spanish heritage. They are all very small,
probably owing to their ancestors’ chronic malnutrition. Many wear
secondhand American T-shirts that appear incongruous here, one
from the Kennedy Space Center.
Tiny women carry amazingly large bags, twice their eighty-pound
weight. Some of the women carry babies in slings around front. A
good adult picker can harvest over two hundred pounds of cherries
and earn $8 a day, more than twice the Guatemalan minimum daily
wage.
In Guatemala, the contrast between poverty and wealth is stark.
Land distribution is lopsided, and those who perform the most
difficult labor do not reap the profits. Yet there is no quick fix to the
inequities built into the economic system, nor any viable alternatives
to coffee as a crop on these mountainsides. The workers are in
many ways more content and fulfilled than their counterparts in the
United States. They have a strong sense of tradition and family life.
As the workers bring in the harvest, I ponder the irony that, once
processed, these beans will travel thousands of miles to give
pleasure to people who enjoy a lifestyle beyond the imagination of
these Guatemalan laborers. Yet it would be unfair to label one group
“villains” and another “victims” in this drama. I realize that nothing
about this story is going to be simple.
I donate my meager harvest to a kid and turn once again to look
at the valley and volcano in the distance. Back in the United States, I
have already begun to accumulate mounds of research material that
threaten to swamp my small home office, where I will write this
history of coffee. But now I am living it, and I can tell that this
experience, this book, will challenge my preconceptions and, I hope,
those of my readers.
 INTRODUCTION
Puddle Water or Panacea?

O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all care, thou are the object of desire to the
scholar. This is the beverage of the friends of God.
—“In Praise of Coffee,” Arabic poem (1511)

[Why do our men] trifle away their time, scald their Chops, and spend their
Money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty bitter stinking, nauseous
Puddle water?
—Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674)

It is only a berry, encasing a double-sided seed. It first grew on a

shrub—or small tree, depending on your perspective or height—
under the Ethiopian rain forest canopy, high on the mountainsides.
The evergreen leaves form glossy ovals and, like the seeds, are
laced with caffeine.
Yet coffee is big business, one of the world’s most valuable
agricultural commodities, providing the largest jolt of the world’s
most widely taken psychoactive drug. From its original African home,
coffee propagation has spread in a girdle around the globe, taking
over whole plains and mountainsides between the Tropics of Cancer
and Capricorn. In the form of a hot infusion of its ground, roasted
seeds, coffee is consumed for its bittersweet bouquet, its mind-
racing jump start, and social bonding. At various times it has been
prescribed as an aphrodisiac, enema, nerve tonic, and life extender.
Coffee provides a livelihood (of sorts) for some 100 million human
beings. It is an incredibly labor-intensive crop. Calloused palms plant
the seeds, nurse the seedlings under a shade canopy, transplant
them to mountainside ranks, prune and fertilize, spray for pests,
irrigate, harvest, and lug two hundred–pound bags of coffee
cherries. Laborers regulate the complicated process of removing the
precious bean from its covering of pulp and mucilage. Then the
beans must be spread to dry for several days (or heated in drums),
the parchment and silver skin removed, and the resulting green
beans bagged for shipment, roasting, grinding, and brewing around
the world.
The vast majority of those who perform these repetitive tasks
work in beautiful places, yet these laborers earn an average of $3 a
day. Many live in poverty without plumbing, electricity, medical care,
or nutritious foods. The coffee they prepare lands on breakfast
tables, in offices and upscale coffee bars of the United States,
Europe, Japan, and other developed countries, where cosmopolitan
consumers often pay a day’s Third World wages for a cappuccino.
The list of those who make money from coffee doesn’t stop in the
producing countries. There are the exporters, importers, and
roasters. There are the frantic traders in the pits of the coffee
exchanges who gesticulate, scream, and set the price of a
commodity they rarely see in its raw form. There are the expert
cuppers (equivalent to wine tasters) who spend their day slurping,
savoring, and spitting coffee. There are the retailers, the vending
machine suppliers, the marketers, the advertising copywriters, the
consultants.
Coffee’s quality is first determined by essentials such as type of
plant, soil conditions, and growing altitude. It can be ruined at any
step along the line. A coffee bean greedily absorbs odors and
flavors. Too much moisture produces mold. A too-light roast
produces undeveloped, bitter coffee, while over-roasted coffee
resembles charcoal. After roasting, the bean stales quickly unless
used within a week or so. Boiling or sitting on a hot plate quickly
reduces the finest brew to a stale cup of black bile.
How do we judge coffee quality? Coffee experts talk about four
basic components that blend to create the perfect cup: aroma, body,
acidity, and flavor. The aroma is familiar and obvious enough—that
fragrance that often promises more than the taste delivers. Body
refers to the feel or “weight” of the coffee in the mouth, how it rolls
around the tongue and fills the throat on the way down. Acidity
refers to a sparkle, a brightness, a tang that adds zest to the cup.
Finally, flavor is the evanescent, subtle taste that explodes in the
mouth, then lingers as a gustatory memory. Coffee experts become
downright poetic in describing these components. For example,
Sulawesi coffee possesses “a seductive combination of butter-
caramel sweetness and herbaceous, loamy tastes,” coffee aficionado
Kevin Knox wrote.
Yet, poetic as its taste may be, coffee’s history is rife with
controversy and politics. It has been banned as a creator of
revolutionary sedition in Arab countries and in Europe. It has been
vilified as the worst health destroyer on earth and praised as the
boon of mankind. Coffee lies at the heart of the Mayan Indian’s
continued subjugation in Guatemala, the democratic tradition in
Costa Rica, and the taming of the Wild West in the United States.
When Idi Amin was killing his Ugandan countrymen, coffee provided
virtually all of his foreign exchange, and the Sandinistas launched
their revolution by commandeering Somoza’s coffee plantations.
Beginning as a medicinal drink for the elite, coffee became the
favored modern stimulant of the blue-collar worker during his break,
the gossip starter in middle-class kitchens, the romantic binder for
wooing couples, and the sole, bitter companion of the lost soul.
Coffeehouses have provided places to plan revolutions, write poetry,
do business, and meet friends. The drink became such an intrinsic
part of Western culture that it has seeped into an incredible number
of popular songs: “You’re the cream in my coffee”; “Let’s have
another cup of coffee, let’s have another piece of pie”; “I love
coffee, I love tea, I love the java jive and it loves me”; “Black coffee,
love’s a hand-me-down brew.”
The modern coffee industry was spawned in late nineteenth-
century America during the furiously capitalistic Gilded Age. At the
end of the Civil War, Jabez Burns invented the first efficient industrial
coffee roaster. The railroad, telegraph, and steamship revolutionized
distribution and communication, while newspapers, magazines, and
lithography allowed massive advertising campaigns. Moguls tried to
corner the coffee market, while Brazilians frantically planted
thousands of acres of coffee trees, only to see the price decline
catastrophically. A pattern of worldwide boom and bust commenced.
By the early twentieth century, coffee had become a major
consumer product, advertised widely throughout the country. In the
1920s and 1930s, national corporations such as Standard Brands
and General Foods snapped up major brands and pushed them
through radio programs. By the 1950s, coffee was the American
middle-class beverage of choice.
Coffee’s modern saga explores broader themes as well: the
importance of advertising, development of assembly line mass
production, urbanization, women’s issues, concentration and
consolidation of national markets, the rise of the supermarket,
automobile, radio, television, “instant” gratification, technological
innovation, multinational conglomerates, market segmentation,
commodity control schemes, and just-in-time inventories. The bean’s
history also illustrates how an entire industry can lose focus,
allowing upstart microroasters to reclaim quality and profits—and
then how the cycle begins again, with bigger companies gobbling
smaller ones in another round of concentration and merger.
The coffee industry has dominated and molded the economy,
politics, and social structure of entire countries. On the one hand, its
monocultural avatar has led to the oppression and land
dispossession of indigenous peoples, the abandoning of subsistence
agriculture in favor of exports, overreliance on foreign markets,
destruction of the rain forest, and environmental degradation. On
the other hand, coffee has provided an essential cash crop for
struggling family farmers, the basis for national industrialization and
modernization, a model of organic production and fair trade, and a
valuable habitat for migratory birds.
The coffee saga encompasses a panoramic story of epic
proportions involving the clash and blending of cultures, the cheap
jazzing of the industrial laborer, the rise of the national brand, and
the ultimate abandonment of quality in favor of price cutting and
commodification of a fine product in the post–World War II era. It
involves an eccentric cast of characters, all of them with a passion
for the golden bean. Something about coffee seems to make many
coffee men (and the increasing number of women who have made
their way into their ranks) opinionated, contentious, and
monomaniacal. They disagree over just about everything, from
whether Ethiopian Harrar or Guatemalan Antigua is the best coffee,
to the best roasting method, to whether a press pot or drip filter
makes superior coffee.
Around the world we are currently witnessing a coffee revival, as
miniroasters revive the fine art of coffee blending and customers
rediscover the joy of fresh-roasted, fresh-ground, fresh-brewed
coffee and espresso, made from the best beans in the world.
And yet, they’re just the berries from an Ethiopian shrub.
Coffee. May you enjoy its convoluted history over many cups.
 INTRODUCTION
to the New Edition

Since the first edition of Uncommon Grounds was published in 1999,

my coffee travels have taken me to Germany, Italy, South Korea,
Thailand, Japan, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Costa Rica, as well as
annual Specialty Coffee Association of America (now expanded to be
the Specialty Coffee Association worldwide) conferences and
speaking engagements around the United States, into specialty
coffee roaster facilities, to Camp Coffee in Vermont (a gathering of
coffee cognoscenti), and even into a Massachusetts deep freeze,
where specialty pioneer George Howell stored his green coffee
beans. I continued to write freelance articles for coffee magazines
such as the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, Fresh Cup, and Barista, as
well as a semi-regular column about coffee in the Wine Spectator.
I have met growers who shared their stories and love for the
beans, along with their frustrations and fears. I have met passionate
roasters and retailers who want to serve the best coffee in the world
while they try to assure that the farmers who grew their product are
paid a living wage and receive good medical care. They are also
concerned about environmental issues, such as shade-grown coffee
that promotes biodiversity, proper processing to prevent water
pollution, and the use of organic fertilizers.
I have found little from the first edition that requires correction,
though I have taken out the assertion that coffee was the “second
most valuable exported legal commodity on earth (after oil).”
Although this factoid has been incessantly repeated in the coffee
world, it turns out not to be true. Wheat, flour, sugar, and soybeans
beat out raw coffee, not to mention copper, aluminum, and yes, oil.
Coffee is, nonetheless, the fourth most valuable agricultural
commodity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization.
Another factoid needs correction as well. Steve Brown, formerly
of TechnoServe and the creator of the Enveritas certification
program, has convincingly argued that there are “only” 12.5 million
coffee farmers in the world (half of the much-repeated but
erroneous claim of 25 million farmers). That is still a lot of people
who rely on coffee for a living, probably over 100 million, including
everyone along the chain, up to baristas and retailers.
I have left other myths alone, such as the lovely story of Kaldi
and the dancing goats. Who knows, it might have happened that
way. Then there are the stories of Georg Franz Kolschitzky founding
the Blue Bottle, a Viennese coffeehouse (probably not the first one
there); Gabriel de Clieu bringing the first coffee tree to Martinique,
from which most of the trees in the Americas descended (well, the
Dutch and French had already introduced coffee elsewhere in Latin
America); and the Brazilian Francisco Palheta seducing the
governor’s wife to bring the first coffee to Brazil (perhaps it wasn’t
really the very first).
Uncommon Grounds seems to have spawned a mini-industry of
coffee books, documentaries, and interest in coffee’s social,
environmental, and economic impact. Too many books have come
out to mention them all, but I have added some to the “Notes on
Sources” section at the end of the book. Most notable are Michaele
Weissman’s God in a Cup (2008); Daniel Jaffe’s Brewing Justice
(2007); Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History (2004); John Talbot’s
Grounds for Agreement (2004); Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie
K. Bealer’s The World of Caffeine (2001); James Hoffmann’s The
World Atlas of Coffee (2018); Majka Burhardt and Travis Horn’s
Coffee Story: Ethiopia (2018); and my own book, Beyond Fair Trade
(2015), which tells the story of a hill tribe growing excellent coffee in
northwestern Thailand.
 Uncommon Grounds and other books have been assigned in
universities that have recognized that a course on coffee is a great
way to engage students in cross-disciplinary, interconnected studies.
These courses can also show several documentaries about coffee.
Two are most notable. Irene Angelico’s Black Coffee (2005), a three-
hour Canadian documentary, offers the most comprehensive,
balanced look at coffee—though I am perhaps somewhat prejudiced
because I appear in it. It should not be confused with Black Gold
(2006), directed by Nick and Marc Francis, a British documentary
that raises important issues but presents a black-and-white picture
of evil roasters versus poor farmers.
In order to keep the book at a reasonable length, I have
judiciously pruned here and there for this edition. Rest assured that
the fascinating story of coffee is all here.
Much has happened in the coffee world since the turn of the
twentieth century—the disastrous coffee crisis (1999–2004) that
further impoverished coffee growers worldwide, the increased sales
and awareness of Fair Trade coffee, the creation of the Cup of
Excellence, the Coffee Quality Institute and Q graders, the popularity
of single-cup brewing systems, global warming’s impact on coffee
growers, a “third wave” of coffee fanatics scouring the world for the
best beans, the beginnings of a flattened coffee playing field due to
the cell phone and internet. Many more people are aware of the
issues raised by coffee’s dramatic, troubled history and its ongoing
saga.
So the good news is that coffee is in the public awareness more
than ever before, with multitudinous blogs, websites, social media,
apps, and print space devoted to the beverage. And there are many
more efforts to address the inequities built into the global coffee
economy. The bad news is that glaring disparities remain and will
remain for the indefinite future. The coffee crisis was no surprise to
anyone who read the first edition of Uncommon Grounds. Such a
humanitarian disaster simply extended the boom-bust cycle that
began in the late nineteenth century and may continue in the future.
The world’s population has grown beyond 7 billion and is
projected to swell to 9.8 billion by the year 2050, which (among
other things) makes water issues a source of grave concern. That’s
why efforts to reduce the amount of water used in processing coffee
are so important, along with recycling not only water but coffee
pulp, grounds, and packaging. Pulp can be recycled as fertilizer for
coffee plants or used for bio-digesting to produce methane gas.
Grounds can be used in compost, as a medium to grow mushrooms,
as an ingredient in plastic, and the like. Roasters are still trying to
find economically viable ways to produce recyclable one-way valve
bags and capsules, but many more coffee cups and auxiliary items
can now be recycled.
The coffee-consuming world is changing as well, with explosive
growth of coffee culture throughout much of the Asian Rim. Korea
has become coffee-obsessed, with some excellent specialty coffee
shops and roasters, and now China is exploding as a coffee culture,
growing some 6 percent a year, as opposed to developed markets
that grow only 1 percent or so. China is even beginning to grow its
own coffee in the mountainous Yunnan region. Coffee shops are
springing up in India as well.
Meanwhile, traditional coffee-growing countries such as Brazil and
Ethiopia are consuming more of their own coffee rather than
exporting it, so the line between “consuming” and “producing”
countries is increasingly blurred. With more of the world rising to
join the middle or upper classes and with the overall population
increasing, coffee consumption is growing. The demand for more
coffee, along with the problems that climate change is causing for
growers, may exacerbate the trend toward a bigger demand for
robusta, which is hardier and less subject to disease, but robusta
coffee is generally of inferior quality.
Does that mean that the boom-bust cycle, which began in the
late nineteenth century, will be a thing of the past, as demand
outstrips production? Some coffee experts have predicted just that,
but as I write this late in 2018, the price of coffee has dropped down
to $1 a pound again, a disaster for coffee producers. Brazil had a
banner production year in 2018, but that means a smaller harvest
for 2019, and prices will probably go up again. Yet some of the price
decline is due to speculation in the futures market and is unrelated
to essential supply and demand for coffee, and other commodities
can influence the price as well. With low prices, Colombian growers
may once again abandon coffee in favor of coca, and the younger
generation, already flocking to cities in coffee-growing countries,
may fail to carry on the family coffee farms or even migrate illegally
to other countries such as the United States.
Other changes in the coffee world? The impact of climate change
has arguably contributed to the devastating epidemic of coffee leaf
rust, which, beginning in 2012, swept throughout Latin America,
hitting Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia particularly hard. As
the temperatures rise, arabica coffee plants must retreat farther up
mountainsides or flee farther from the equator. Coffee is now
growing in California for the first time, which is a new opportunity,
but it is likely that the amount of arabica coffee grown in the world
will dwindle as the land on which it can grow becomes scarcer. The
death of the boom-bust cycle? I don’t think so.
The coffee roasting and retail market has consolidated
substantially in the last few years, with the German private firm JAB
Holding Company snapping up Keurig Green Mountain and a
majority ownership of Peet’s, Caribou, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, and
others, while Nestlé (Nescafe, Nespresso, and a deal to distribute
Starbucks worldwide) has become equally huge. Between them,
those two corporations control an equal portion of about half of the
world coffee market. And in 2018 Coca-Cola bought the British Costa
Coffee chain. With such consolidation, these huge corporations can
exert downward pressure on prices paid to growers, exporters, and
importers, so that the traditional disconnect between profits for
those at origin and roasters may grow even worse. Currently, profits
of only about 10 percent remain with the growers.
On the other hand, there has been an explosion of micro-roasters
in the United States and Europe, and they are pursuing direct trade
not only with specific specialty estates but with co-ops and small
farmers down to the micro-level of a particular type of coffee and
processing method from a particular mountainside. Although there
will inevitably be a shakedown in the number of such ventures that
succeed or fail, it is an encouraging trend that provides a
counterbalance to consolidation in the industry.
Another form of consolidation has taken place within the specialty
coffee industry infrastructure, with the European, American, and
other specialty organizations joining forces in 2016 to become the
Special Coffee Association (SCA). Although some founders of the
Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) objected vehemently,
the merger appears to be successful thus far.
Coffee competitions have proliferated since 2010 as well, with
baristas, latte artists, filter brewers, roasters, designers, and cup
tasters plying their art for prizes worldwide. In addition, there is a
“Coffee in Good Spirits” award for the best “mixed” drink. There’s a
sustainability award and best new coffee-related product. In addition
to the Cup of Excellence, other countrywide competitions have
launched, and in 2016 the first annual Ernesto Illy International
Coffee Award brought the top coffee growers from nine countries to
New York City for a cupping contest to choose the best of the best.
Other good news is that large epidemiological studies of coffee
continue to provide evidence that moderate (or even fairly heavy)
coffee consumption can be good for you, reducing the incidence of
liver cancer, for instance, as well as suicide attempts. Scandinavian
countries tend to rank high in the “Happiness Index” compiled by
Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Is it a pure coincidence that they also rank
high in per capita coffee consumption?
Consumers are becoming more aware of social issues, concerned
that their coffee is grown ethically and sustainably. They are also
becoming more aware that Fair Trade certifications—which split over
philosophical differences between Fair Trade USA and the rest of the
world—as well as Rainforest Alliance, CCCC (Common Codes for the
Coffee Community), or company certifications such as Starbucks’
C.A.F.E. Practices (Coffee and Farmer Equity), are not necessarily
cure-alls. Because they generally charge substantial fees for their
auditors, and because many have parameters demanding that
members join cooperatives, not all coffee farmers can be certified.
Not only that, but investigators in places such as Chiapas have
found child labor used on some certified farms—not caught because
the auditors give notice that they are about to arrive, giving growers
time to clean up their acts. In 2018, a new form of certification,
Enveritas, was launched with the support of some major roasters.
Called an “assurance” rather than a certification, it charges roasters
for audits, and the audits are surprise visits. On the other hand,
Enveritas does not insure any particular price for the coffee beans,
unlike the base of beans sold as Fair Trade.
The argument over the desirability of any certification continues,
however, with many specialty roasters insisting that high quality is
the only way to assure a sustainable premium. The trouble, of
course, is that not all coffee is specialty grade, and that nonspecialty
sector includes all the robusta growers.
About half of those who labor to produce your coffee are women.
Everywhere in the world, it is women who sort in tedious fashion to
remove defective beans, and women continue in general to be
underpaid and undereducated. That is changing, as women
increasingly own farms, processing plants, and retail shops. In an
effort to increase awareness, illycaffé, the top-end Italian espresso
maker, sold coffee in 2018 in odd-looking cups that to all
appearances had literally been cut down the middle, illustrating what
coffee would be without women’s involvement. The International
Women’s Coffee Alliance and other organizations are pushing for the
shattering of glass coffee ceilings.
The #MeToo movement, calling out sexual harassment
worldwide, has also impacted the coffee industry, though there have
been few high-profile cases. In 2017, industry veteran Molly Soeder
founded #coffeetoo to document such problems. Soeder claimed to
have witnessed and experienced sexual harassment at a recent
coffee conference. “Unfortunately,” she said, “this wasn’t surprising.”
Jeremy Tooker, the founder of Four Barrel Coffee in San
Francisco, was ousted in early 2018 after eight female employees
came forward to accuse him of creating a “toxic workplace culture,”
including sexual assault. Four Barrell had featured coffee mugs with
the logo, “F__ it” and “Dickens Cider,” pronounced as “dick inside
her.” Although he was unusually gross in the refined coffee world,
Tooker’s case indicated that there were indeed sexual problems in
the industry. In the world of coffee growers, there are undoubtedly
similar issues in macho Latin America or sexist Africa or Asia.
The good news is that technology continues to have an impact,
with the internet and cell phones bringing education and awareness
to even the most remote growers—news not only of the #MeToo
movement, but also of coffee prices and products. Innovative
designs for cookstoves have reduced rural pollution from dung and
wood fires.
There have been surprising consumer trends as well, with the
popularity of single-serve capsules that yield relatively high-quality
coffee, such as K-Cups and Nespresso capsules. It appears that
people are willing to pay handsomely for convenience, both at home
and in the office, even if it means more plastic in the waste stream.
Cold-brew coffee, chilled with liquid nitrogen that produces a
heady foam when opened, has become another popular trend.
Pioneered by Cuvee Coffee, it uses a similar method to Guinness
beer. Stumptown led the segment, resulting in its sale to Peet’s,
which began to produce cold-brew itself, along with Starbucks, even
though both of the latter companies had sworn never to do so.
With the introduction of Starbucks’ Via in 2009, instant coffee
joined the ranks of specialty coffee, offering a decent soluble cup.
Beginning in 2016, several other companies—Sudden Coffee, Voila,
and Swift Cup—introduced single-origin instant brews that cost as
much as $3 apiece. It remains to be seen whether they will find a
large enough market to survive.
There has been an explosion of coffee studies in academia, as
previously mentioned. The University of California at Davis now has
a coffee center, as does Texas A&M, Zurich University of Applied
Sciences, Nottingham University, and others. Putting this in context,
it is widely thought that the advent of brewing education at UC Davis
fueled the current boom of craft beer in the United States. Could the
same be happening for coffee? It is more likely to be the other way
around, though the academic interest will certainly also increase
coffee awareness and consumption.
Starbucks has made headlines, as ever, but sometimes not the
kind it wants. In 2018, for instance, two African American men were
handcuffed and arrested for sitting at a Philadelphia Starbucks. They
were waiting for a business meeting but had not yet ordered
anything, and the manager called the cops. Starbucks initiated
racism training courses as a result.
The same year, Starbucks finally opened in Italy with a shop in
Milan. Howard Schultz, longtime head of Starbucks, had been
inspired to explore espresso-based drinks three decades previously
in the same city. But there is a vast difference between the American
and Italian styles. Whereas older Italians pooh-pooh Starbucks’ entry
in their country, it is likely that younger consumers will welcome a
place to enjoy coffee while sitting down and relaxing, as opposed to
frequenting the traditional Italian stand-up espresso bar.
And many coffee lovers would prefer Howard Schultz to Donald
Trump or his ilk as a US president. When Schultz announced that he
was retiring in 2018, there was widespread speculation that he
might run. He certainly sounded like a politician when he told a
journalist, “There’s just been a lack of responsibility [from] both
parties. If you just got people in the room who left their ideology
outside the room and recognized that we’re here to walk in the
shoes of the American people, we could solve these problems.” He
was particularly concerned about the national debt. Perhaps it could
be reduced by getting people to drink more coffee.
Regardless of whether the future holds a coffee president, the
history of the beverage remains a fascinating subject, and of course
we are making that continuing history now. It is difficult to predict
the future. Perhaps the “fourth wave” of coffee features the micro-
roasters who are continuing to hone the craft of specialty coffee in
ever more refined ways, although the consolidation of the industry
trends in the other direction, it seems. The boom-bust cycle may
accelerate into a quicker up-and-down pattern that will hopefully
trend upward in price as high-quality coffee becomes scarcer.
Finally, let me address a question some readers have raised about
the book’s subtitle. How did coffee transform the world? I never
specifically summarized these impacts in the main text, though they
are all there. Coffee invaded and transformed mountainsides in
tropical areas, sometimes with devastating environmental results. It
promoted the enslavement and persecution of indigenous peoples
and Africans. It sobered European workers, while coffeehouses
provided a social venue that spawned new art and business
enterprises as well as revolutions. Along with other commodities, it
gave birth to international trade and futures exchanges. In Latin
America it created vast wealth next to dire poverty, leading to
repressive military dictatorships, revolts, and bloodbaths. And it
continues to transform the world today, as these introductory
remarks indicate.

Mark Pendergrast
Colchester, Vermont
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 Fig. 313.—Diodon maculatus.

Fig. 314.—Diodon maculatus, inflated.

C. Molina.—Body compressed, very short; tail extremely short,
truncate. Vertical fins confluent. No pelvic bone.
The “Sun-fishes” (Orthagoriscus) are pelagic fishes, found in
every part of the oceans within the tropical and temperate zones.
The singular shape of their body and the remarkable changes which
they undergo with age, have been noticed above (p. 175, Figs. 93,
94). Their jaws are undivided in the middle, comparatively feeble, but
well adapted for masticating their food, which consists of small
pelagic Crustaceans. Two species are known. The common Sun-
fish, O. mola, which attains to a very large size, measuring seven or
eight feet, and weighing as many hundredweights. It has a rough,
minutely granulated skin. It frequently approaches the southern
coasts of England and the coasts of Ireland, and is seen basking in
calm weather on the surface. The second species, O. truncatus, is
distinguished by its smooth, tessellated skin, and one of the scarcest
fishes in collections. The shortness of the vertebral column of the
Sun-fishes, in which the number of caudal vertebra is reduced to
seven, the total number being seventeen, and the still more reduced
length of the spinal chord have been noticed above (p. 96).

THIRD SUB-CLASS—CYCLOSTOMATA.
Skeleton cartilaginous and notochordal, without ribs and without
real jaws. Skull not separate from the vertebral column. No limbs.
Gills in the form of fixed sacs, without branchial arches, six or seven
in number on each side. One nasal aperture only. Heart without
bulbus arteriosus. Mouth anterior, surrounded by a circular or
subcircular lip, suctorial. Alimentary canal straight, simple, without
coecal appendages, pancreas or spleen. Generative outlet
peritoneal. Vertical fins rayed.
The Cyclostomes are most probably a very ancient type.
Unfortunately the organs of these creatures are too soft to be
preserved, with the exception of the horny denticles with which the
mouth of some of them is armed. And, indeed, dental plates, which
are very similar to those of Myxine, are not uncommon in certain
strata of Devonian and Silurian age (see p. 193). The fishes
belonging to this sub-class may be divided into two families—

First Family—Petromyzontidæ.
Body eel-shaped, naked. Subject to a metamorphosis; in the
perfect stage with a suctorial mouth armed with teeth, simple or
multicuspid, horny, sitting on a soft papilla. Maxillary, mandibulary,
lingual, and suctorial teeth may be distinguished. Eyes present (in
mature animals). External nasal aperture in the middle of the upper
side of the head. The nasal duct terminates without perforating the
palate. Seven branchial sacs and apertures on each side behind the
head; the inner branchial ducts terminate in a separate common
tube. Intestine with a spiral valve. Eggs small. The larvæ without
teeth, and with a single continuous vertical fin.
“Lampreys” are found in the rivers and on the coasts of the
temperate regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. Their
habits are but incompletely known, but so much is certain that at
least some of them ascend rivers periodically, for the purpose of
spawning, and that the young pass several years in rivers, whilst
they undergo a metamorphosis (see p. 170). They feed on other
fishes, to which they suck themselves fast, scraping off the flesh with
their teeth. Whilst thus engaged they are carried about by their
victim; Salmon have been captured in the middle course of the Rhine
with the Marine Lamprey attached to them.

Fig. 315.—Mouth of Larva of

Petromyzon branchialis.
 Fig. 316.—Mouth of Petromyzon
fluviatilis. mx, Maxillary tooth; md,
Mandibulary tooth; l, Lingual tooth;
s, Suctorial teeth.
Petromyzon.—Dorsal fins two, the posterior continuous with the
caudal. The maxillary dentition consists of two teeth placed close
together, or of a transverse bicuspid ridge; lingual teeth serrated.

The Lampreys belonging to this genus are found in the northern

hemisphere only; the British species are the Sea-Lamprey (P.
marinus), exceeding a length of three feet, and not uncommon on
the European and North American coasts; the River-Lamprey or
Lampern (P. fluviatilis), ascending in large numbers the rivers of
Europe, North America, and Japan, and scarcely attaining a length
of two feet; the “Pride” or “Sand-Piper” or Small Lampern (P.
branchialis), scarcely twelve inches long, the larva of which has been
long known under the name of Ammocoetes.
Ichthyomyzon from the western coasts of North America is said
to have a tricuspid maxillary tooth.
Mordacia.—Dorsal fins two, the posterior continuous with the
caudal. The maxillary dentition consists of two triangular groups, each
with three conical acute cusps; two pairs of serrated lingual teeth.
 Fig. 317.—Mouth of Mordacia mordax, closed and
opened.
A Lamprey (M. mordax) from the coasts of Chile and Tasmania.
This fish seems to be provided sometimes with a gular sac, like the
following.[47]

Fig. 318.—Mordacia mordax.

Geotria.—Dorsal fins two, the posterior separate from the caudal.
Maxillary lamina with four sharp flat lobes; a pair of long pointed
lingual teeth.
Two species, one from Chile and one from South Australia. They
grow to a length of two feet, and in some specimens the skin of the
throat is much expanded, forming a large pouch. Its physiological
function is not known. The cavity is in the subcutaneous cellular
tissue, and does not communicate with the buccal or branchial
cavities. Probably it is developed with age, and absent in young
individuals. In all the localities in which these Extra-european
Lampreys are found, Ammocoetes forms occur, so that there is little
doubt that they undergo a similar metamorphosis as P. branchialis.
 Second Family—myxinidæ.
Body eel-shaped, naked. The single nasal aperture is above the
mouth, quite at the extremity of the head, which is provided with four
pairs of barbels. Mouth without lips. Nasal duct without cartilaginous
rings, penetrating the palate. One median tooth on the palate, and
two comb-like series of teeth on the tongue (see Fig. 101). Branchial
apertures at a great distance from the head; the inner branchial
ducts lead into the œsophagus. A series of mucous sacs along each
side of the abdomen. Intestine without spiral valve. Eggs large, with
a horny case provided with threads for adhesion.

Fig. 319.—Ovum of Myxine

glutinosa, enlarged.
The fishes of this family are known by the names of “Hag-Fish,”
“Glutinous Hag,” or “Borer;” they are marine fishes with a similar
distribution as the Gadidæ, being most plentiful in the higher
latitudes of the temperate zones of the northern and southern
hemispheres. They are frequently found buried in the abdominal
cavity of other fishes, especially Gadoids, into which they penetrate
to feed on their flesh. They secrete a thick glutinous slime in
incredible quantities, and are therefore considered by fishermen a
great nuisance, seriously damaging the fisheries and interfering with
the fishing in localities where they abound. Myxine descends to a
depth of 345 fathoms, and is generally met with in the Norwegian
Fjords at 70 fathoms, sometimes in great abundance.
 Myxine.—One external branchial aperture only on each side of the
abdomen, leading by six ducts to six branchial sacs.
Three species from the North Atlantic, Japan, and Magelhæn’s
Straits.

Fig. 320.—Myxine australis. A, Lower aspect of head; a, Nasal aperture; b, Mouth;

g, Branchial aperture; v, Vent.
Bdellostoma.—Six or more external branchial apertures on each
side, each leading by a separate duct to a branchial sac.
Two species from the South Pacific.

FOURTH SUB-CLASS—LEPTOCARDII.
Skeleton membrano-cartilaginous and notochordal, ribless. No
brain. Pulsating sinuses in place of a heart. Blood colourless.
Respiratory cavity confluent with the abdominal cavity; branchial
clefts in great number, the water being expelled by an opening in
front of the vent. Jaws none.
This sub-class is represented by a single family (Cirrostomi) and
by a single genus (Branchiostoma);[48] it is the lowest in the scale of
fishes, and lacks so many characteristics, not only of this class, but
of the vertebrata generally, that Hæckel, with good reason,
separates it into a separate class, that of Acrania. The various parts
of its organisation have been duly noticed in the first part of this
work.
The “Lancelet” (Branchiostoma lanceolatum, see Fig. 28, p. 63),
seems to be almost cosmopolitan within the temperate and tropical
zones. Its small size, its transparency, and the rapidity with which it
is able to bury itself in the sand, are the causes why it escapes so
readily observation, even at localities where it is known to be
common. Shallow, sandy parts of the coasts seem to be the places
on which it may be looked for. It has been found on many localities of
the British, and generally European coasts, in North America, the
West Indies, Brazil, Peru, Tasmania, Australia, and Borneo. It rarely
exceeds a length of three inches. A smaller species, in which the
dorsal fringe is distinctly higher and rayed, and in which the caudal
fringe is absent, has been described under the name of
Epigionichthys pulchellus; it was found in Moreton Bay.
 APPENDIX.
DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING AND PRESERVING FISHES.
Whenever practicable fishes ought to be preserved in spirits.
To insure success in preserving specimens the best and
strongest spirits should be procured, which, if necessary, can be
reduced to the strength required during the journey with water or
weaker spirit. Travellers frequently have great difficulties in procuring
spirits during their journey, and therefore it is advisable, especially
during sea voyages, that the traveller should take a sufficient
quantity with him. Pure spirits of wine is best. Methylated spirits may
be recommended on account of their cheapness; however,
specimens do not keep equally well in this fluid, and very valuable
objects, or such as are destined for minute anatomical examination,
should always be kept in pure spirits of wine. If the collector has
exhausted his supply of spirits he may use arrack, cognac, or rum,
provided that the fluids contain a sufficient quantity of alcohol.
Generally speaking, spirits which, without being previously heated,
can be ignited by a match or taper, may be used for the purposes of
conservation. The best method to test the strength of the spirits is
the use of a hydrometer. It is immersed in the fluid to be measured,
and the deeper it sinks the stronger is the spirit. On its scale the
number 0 signifies what is called proof spirit, the lowest degree of
strength which can be used for the conservation of fish for any length
of time. Spirits, in which specimens are packed permanently, should
be from 40 to 60 above proof. If the hydrometers are made of glass
they are easily broken, and therefore the traveller had better provide
himself with three or four of them, their cost being very trifling.
Further, the collector will find a small distilling apparatus very useful.
By its means he is able not only to distil weak and deteriorated spirits
or any other fluid containing alcohol, but also, in case of necessity, to
prepare a small quantity of drinkable spirits.
Of collecting vessels we mention first those which the collector
requires for daily use. Most convenient are four-sided boxes made of
zinc, 18 in. high, 12 in. broad, and 5 in. wide. They have a round
opening at the top of 4 in. diameter, which can be closed by a strong
cover of zinc of 5 in. diameter, the cover being screwed into a raised
rim round the opening. In order to render the cover air-tight, an
indiarubber ring is fixed below its margin. Each of these zinc boxes
fits into a wooden case, the lid of which is provided with hinges and
fastenings, and which on each side has a handle of leather or rope,
so that the box can be easily shifted from one place to another.
These boxes are in fact made from the pattern of the ammunition
cases used in the British army, and extremely convenient, because a
pair can be easily carried strapped over the shoulders of a man or
across the back of a mule. The collector requires at least two, still
better four or six, of these boxes. All those specimens which are
received during the day are deposited in them, in order to allow them
to be thoroughly penetrated by the spirit, which must be renewed
from time to time. They remain there for some time under the
supervision of the collector, and are left in these boxes until they are
hardened and fit for final packing. Of course, other more simple
vessels can be used and substituted for the collecting boxes. For
instance, common earthenware vessels, closed by a cork or an
indiarubber covering, provided they have a wide mouth at the top,
which can be closed so that the spirit does not evaporate, and which
permits of the specimens being inspected at any moment without
trouble. Vessels in which the objects are permanently packed for the
home journey are zinc boxes of various sizes, closely fitting into
wooden cases. Too large a size should be avoided, because the
objects themselves may suffer from the superimposed weight, and
the risk of injury to the case increases with its size. It should hold no
more than 18 cubic feet at most, and what, in accordance with the
size of the specimens, has to be added in length should be deducted
in depth or breadth. The most convenient cases, but not sufficient for
all specimens, are boxes 2 feet in length, 1½ foot broad, and 1 foot
deep. The traveller may provide himself with such cases ready
made, packing in them other articles which he wants during his
journey; or he may find it more convenient to take with him only the
zinc plates cut to the several sizes, and join them into boxes when
they are actually required. The requisite wooden cases can be
procured without much difficulty almost everywhere. No collector
should be without the apparatus and materials for soldering, and he
should be well acquainted with their use. Also a pair of scissors to
cut the zinc plates are useful.
Wooden casks are not suitable for the packing of specimens
preserved in spirits, at least not in tropical climates. They should be
used in cases of necessity only, or for packing of the largest
examples, or for objects preserved in salt or brine.
Very small and delicate specimens should never be packed
together with larger ones, but separately, in small bottles.
Mode of preserving.—All fishes, with the exception of very large
ones (broad kinds exceeding 3–4 feet in length; eel-like kinds more
than 6 feet long), should be preserved in spirits. A deep cut should
be made in the abdomen between the pectoral fins, another in front
of the vent, and one or two more, according to the length of the fish,
along the middle line of the abdomen. These cuts are made partly to
remove the fluid and easily decomposing contents of the intestinal
tract, partly to allow the spirit quickly to penetrate into the interior. In
large fleshy fishes several deep incisions should be made with the
scalpel into the thickest parts of the dorsal and caudal muscles, to
give ready entrance to the spirits. The specimens are then placed in
one of the provisional boxes, in order to extract, by means of the
spirit, the water of which fishes contain a large quantity. After a few
days (in hot climates after 24 or 48 hours) the specimens are
transferred into a second box with stronger spirits, and left therein for
several days. A similar third and, in hot climates sometimes a fourth,
transfer is necessary. This depends entirely on the condition of the
specimens. If, after ten or fourteen days of such treatment the
specimens are firm and in good condition, they may be left in the
spirits last used until they are finally packed. But if they should be
soft, very flexible, and discharge a discoloured bloody mucus, they
must be put back in spirits at least 20° over proof. Specimens
showing distinct signs of decomposition should be thrown away, as
they imperil all other specimens in the same vessel. Neither should
any specimen in which decomposition has commenced when found,
be received for the collecting boxes, unless it be of a very rare
species, when the attempt may be made to preserve it separately in
the strongest spirits available. The fresher the specimens to be
preserved are, the better is the chance of keeping them in a perfect
condition. Specimens which have lost their scales, or are otherwise
much injured, should not be kept. Herring-like fishes, and others with
deciduous scales, are better wrapped in thin paper or linen before
being placed in spirits.
The spirits used during this all-important process of preservation
loses, of course, gradually in strength. As long as it keeps 10° under
proof it may still be used for the first stage of preservation, but
weaker spirits should be re-distilled; or, if the collector cannot do this,
it should be at least filtered through powdered charcoal before it is
mixed with stronger spirits. Many collectors are satisfied with
removing the thick sediment collected at the bottom of the vessel,
and use their spirits over and over again without removing from it by
filtration the decomposing matter with which it has been
impregnated, and which entirely neutralises the preserving property
of the spirits. The result is generally the loss of the collection on its
journey home. The collector can easily detect the vitiated character
of his spirits by its bad smell. He must frequently examine his
specimens; and attention to the rules given, with a little practice and
perseverance, after the possible failure of the first trial, will soon
insure to him the safety of his collected treasures. The trouble of
collecting specimens in spirits is infinitely less than that of preserving
skins or dry specimens of any kind.
When a sufficient number of well-preserved examples have been
brought together, they should be sent home by the earliest
opportunity. Each specimen should be wrapped separately in a piece
of linen, or at least soft paper; the specimens are then packed as
close as herrings in the zinc case, so that no free space is left either
at the top or on the sides. When the case is full, the lid is soldered
on, with a round hole about half an inch in diameter near one of the
corners. This hole is left in order to pour the spirit through it into the
case. Care is taken to drive out the air which may remain between
the specimens, and to surround them completely with spirits, until
the case is quite full. Finally, the hole is closed by a small square lid
of tin being soldered over it. In order to see whether the case keeps
in the spirit perfectly, it is turned upside down and left over night.
When all is found to be securely fastened, the zinc case is placed
into the wooden box and ready for transport.
Now and then it happens in tropical climates that collectors are
unable to keep fishes from decomposition even in the strongest
spirits without being able to detect the cause. In such cases a
remedy will be found in mixing a small quantity of arsenic or
sublimate with the spirits; but the collector ought to inform his
correspondent, or the recipient of the collection, of this admixture
having been made.
In former times fishes of every kind, even those of small size,
were preserved dry as flat skins or stuffed. Specimens thus prepared
admit of a very superficial examination only, and therefore this
method of conservation has been abandoned in all larger museums,
and should be employed exceptionally only, for instance on long
voyages overland, during which, owing to the difficulty of transport,
neither spirits nor vessels can be carried. To make up as much as
possible for the imperfection of such specimens, the collector ought
to sketch the fish before it is skinned, and to colour the sketch if the
species is ornamented with colours likely to disappear in the dry
example. Collectors who have the requisite time and skill, ought to
accompany their collections with drawings coloured from the living
fishes; but at the same time it must be remembered that, valuable as
such drawings are if accompanied by the originals from which they
were made, they can never replace the latter, and possess a
subordinate scientific value only.
Very large fishes can be preserved as skins only; and collectors
are strongly recommended to prepare in this manner the largest
examples obtainable, although it will entail some trouble and
expense. So very few large examples are exhibited in museums, the
majority of the species being known from the young stage only, that
the collector will find himself amply recompensed by attending to
these desiderata.
 Scaly fishes are skinned thus: with a strong pair of scissors an
incision is made along the median line of the abdomen from the
foremost part of the throat, passing on one side of the base of the
ventral and anal fins, to the root of the caudal fin, the cut being
continued upwards to the back of the tail close to the base of the
caudal. The skin of one side of the fish is then severed with the
scalpel from the underlying muscles to the median line of the back;
the bones which support the dorsal and caudal are cut through, so
that these fins remain attached to the skin. The removal of the skin
of the opposite side is easy. More difficult is the preparation of the
head and scapulary region; the two halves of the scapular arch
which have been severed from each other by the first incision are
pressed towards the right and left, and the spine is severed behind
the head, so that now only the head and shoulder bones remain
attached to the skin. These parts have to be cleaned from the inside,
all soft parts, the branchial and hyoid apparatus, and all smaller
bones, being cut away with the scissors or scraped off with the
scalpel. In many fishes, which are provided with a characteristic
dental apparatus in the pharynx (Labroids, Cyprinoids), the
pharyngeal bones ought to be preserved, and tied with a thread to
the specimen. The skin being now prepared so far, its entire inner
surface as well as the inner side of the head are rubbed with
arsenical soap; cotton-wool, or some other soft material is inserted
into any cavities or hollows, and finally a thin layer of the same
material is placed between the two flaps of the skin. The specimen is
then dried under a slight weight to keep it from shrinking.
The scales of some fishes, as for instance of many kinds of
herrings, are so delicate and deciduous that the mere handling
causes them to rub off easily. Such fishes may be covered with thin
paper (tissue-paper is the best), which is allowed to dry on them
before skinning. There is no need for removing the paper before the
specimen has reached its destination.
Scaleless Fishes, as Siluroids and Sturgeons, are skinned in the
same manner, but the skin can be rolled up over the head; such
skins can also be preserved in spirits, in which case the traveller
may save to himself the trouble of cleaning the head.
 Some Sharks are known to attain to a length of 30 feet, and
some Rays to a width of 20 feet. The preservation of such gigantic
specimens is much to be recommended, and although the difficulties
of preserving fishes increase with their size, the operation is
facilitated, because the skins of all Sharks and Rays can easily be
preserved in salt and strong brine. Sharks are skinned much in the
same way as ordinary fishes. In Rays an incision is made not only
from the snout to the end of the fleshy part of the tail, but also a
second across the widest part of the body. When the skin is removed
from the fish, it is placed into a cask with strong brine mixed with
alum, the head occupying the upper part of the cask; this is
necessary, because this part is most likely to show signs of
decomposition, and therefore most requires supervision. When the
preserving fluid has become decidedly weaker from the extracted
blood and water, it is thrown away and replaced by fresh brine. After
a week’s or fortnight’s soaking the skin is taken out of the cask to
allow the fluid to drain off; its inner side is covered with a thin layer of
salt, and after being rolled up (the head being inside) it is packed in a
cask, the bottom of which is covered with salt; all the interstices and
the top are likewise filled with salt. The cask must be perfectly water-
tight.
Of all larger examples of which the skin is prepared, the
measurements should be taken before skinning so as to guide the
taxidermist in stuffing and mounting the specimens.
Skeletons of large osseous fishes are as valuable as their skins.
To preserve them it is only necessary to remove the soft parts of the
abdominal cavity and the larger masses of muscle, the bones being
left in their natural continuity. The remaining flesh is allowed to dry
on the bones, and can be removed by proper maceration at home.
The fins ought to be as carefully attended to as in a skin, and of
scaly fishes so much of the external skin ought to be preserved as is
necessary for the determination of the species, as otherwise it is
generally impossible to determine more than the genus.
A few remarks may be added as regards those Faunæ, which
promise most results to the explorer, with some hints as to desirable
information on the life and economic value of fishes.
 It is surprising to find how small the number is of the freshwater
faunæ which may be regarded as well explored; the rivers of Central
Europe, the Lower Nile, the lower and middle course of the Ganges,
and the lower part of the Amazons are almost the only fresh waters
in which collections made without discrimination would not reward
the naturalist. The oceanic areas are much better known; yet almost
everywhere novel forms can be discovered and new observations
made. Most promising and partly quite unknown are the following
districts:—the Arctic Ocean, all coasts south of 38° lat. S., the Cape
of Good Hope, the Persian Gulf, the coasts of Australia (with the
exception of Tasmania, New South Wales, and New Zealand), many
of the little-visited groups of Pacific islands, the coasts of north-
eastern Asia north of 35° lat. N., and the western coasts of North and
South America.
No opportunity should be lost to obtain pelagic forms, especially
the young larva-like stages of development abounding on the
surface of the open ocean. They can be obtained without difficulty by
means of a small narrow meshed net dragged behind the ship. The
sac of the net is about 3 feet deep, and fastened to a strong brass-
ring 2 or 2½ feet in diameter. The net is suspended by three lines
passing into the strong main line. It can only be used when the
vessel moves very slowly, its speed not exceeding three knots an
hour, or when a current passes the ship whilst at anchor. To keep the
net in a vertical position the ring can be weighted at one point of its
circumference; and by using heavier weights two or three drag-nets
can be used simultaneously at different depths. This kind of fishing
should be tried at night as well as day, as many fishes come to the
surface only after sunset. The net must not be left long in the water,
from 5 to 20 minutes only, as delicate objects would be sure to be
destroyed by the force of the water passing through the meshes.
Objects found floating on the surface, as wood, baskets,
seaweed, etc., deserve the attention of the travellers, as they are
generally surrounded by small fishes or other marine animals.
It is of the greatest importance to note the longitude and latitude
at which the objects were collected in the open ocean.
 Fishing in great depths by means of the dredge, can be practised
only from vessels specially fitted out for the purpose; and the
success which attended the “Challenger,” and North American Deep-
sea explorations, has developed Deep-sea fishing into such a
speciality that the requisite information can be gathered better by
consulting the reports of those expeditions than from a general
account, such as could be given in the present work.
Fishes offer an extraordinary variety with regard to their habits,
growth, etc., so that it is impossible to enumerate in detail the points
of interest to which the travellers should pay particular attention.
However, the following hints may be useful.
Above all, detailed accounts are desirable of all fishes forming
important articles of trade, or capable of becoming more generally
useful than they are at present. Therefore, deserving of special
attention are the Sturgeons, Gadoids, Thyrsites and Chilodactylus,
Salmonoids, Clupeoids. Wherever these fishes are found in sufficient
abundance, new sources may be opened to trade.
Exact observations should be made on the fishes the flesh of
which is poisonous either constantly or at certain times and certain
localities; the cause of the poisonous qualities as well as the nature
of the poison should be ascertained. Likewise the poison of fishes
provided with special poison-organs requires to be experimentally
examined, especially with regard to its effects on other fishes and
animals generally.
All observations directed to sex, mode of propagation, and
development, will have special interest: thus those relating to
secondary sexual characters, hermaphroditism, numeric proportion
of the sexes, time of spawning and migration, mode of spawning,
construction of nests, care of progeny, change of form during growth,
etc.
If the collector is unable to preserve the largest individuals of a
species that may come under his observation he should note at least
their measurements. There are but few species of fishes of which the
limit of growth is known.
 The history of Parasitic Fishes is almost unknown, and any
observations with regard to their relation to their host as well as to
their early life will prove to be valuable; nothing is known of the
propagation of fishes even so common as Echeneis and Fierasfer,
much less of the parasitic Freshwater Siluroids.
The temperature of the blood of the larger freshwater and marine
species should be exactly measured.
Many pelagic and deep-sea fishes are provided with peculiar
small round organs of a mother-of-pearl colour, distributed in series
along the side of the body, especially along the abdomen. Some
zoologists consider these organs as accessory eyes, others (and it
appears to us with better reason) as luminous organs. They deserve
an accurate microscopic examination made on fresh specimens; and
their function should be ascertained from observation of the living
fishes, especially also with regard to the question, whether or not the
luminosity (if such be their function) is subject to the will of the fish.

Fig. 321.—Scopelus boops, a pelagic fish, with luminous organs.