3 2 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they hold their ground very firmly, yet how they do so we have 

 not discovered. Neither can we understand how the nursing lather 

 avoids swallowing his progeny; we are also ignorant at what period 

 of their life the young ones leave the paternal mouth to live inde- 

 pendently. 



The Chromis pater-familias is 7 inches long by If inch thick. 

 The teeth are very fine and sharp, disposed in several rows. The 

 snout is obtuse, conical, the upper profile oblique. The nasal promi- 

 nence is very conspicuous. The caudal fin is almost truncated. The 

 soft rays of the dorsal reach to the beginning of the caudal. The 

 length of the body, including the tail, is 4^ times its thickness. The 

 snout is in length twice the diameter of the orbit. The mouth is 

 slightly oblique, large, as wide as it is long. The teeth are slightly 

 recurved, disposed in three or four rows, tinged with deep yellow at 

 the free end. The first row presents 26 on each side of the upper 

 maxillary. The fins show the number of rays following : 



Dorsal 14+11 



Anal 3+8 



Caudal 16 



Pectoral 12 



Ventral 1+ 5 



The lateral line comprises 32 scales disposed 20 + 12. The scales 

 are cycloidal, their length greater than their breadth ; three-fourths 

 of their surface is covered by the succeeding scales. Color, olive- 

 green on the back, barred with blue. The belly has a silvery lustre, 

 with green and blue spots. 



I caught this interesting species, with a net, on the 29th of 

 April, 1875, in shallow water full of reeds, on the margin of Lake 

 Tiberias, at a place called Ain-Tin, the ancient Capernaum. There 

 are numerous warm springs there which unite to form a rather con- 

 siderable stream. It is in these warm waters that the Chromis lives. 

 La Nature. 



BIGOTRY IX SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY. 1 



MANY edifying commonplaces might doubtless be written on the 

 intellectual fermentation, if it may not rather be called confu- 

 sion of the age. Nor can it be denied that tendencies supposed to 

 have been long ago slain and sepulchred have risen again, and are 

 asserting themselves with a hardihood which our fathers would have 

 deemed impossible. When we find a scientific work at any rate :* 

 woi-k written by an eminent scientific man, and devoted to the dis- 



1 " Lessons from Nature. By St. George Mivart, F. R. S." New York : D. Appleton 

 &Co. 



