1897. ' SOME NEW BOOKS. 341 



In chapter I. the author undertakes to give a short resume of the 

 " History of Modern Investigations of the Subject," and here we do 

 not think he is seen at his best : first, because the account is 

 brought barely down to 1894, ^^^ considering the rapid progress of 

 modern science, it is a grave defect for a book to be aheady over 

 two years behind the times on the day of pubhcation ; secondly, 

 because not only are there one or two misstatements of facts, but the 

 whole resume is calculated to give a layman a wrong impression with 

 regard to the comparative magnitude and importance of the different 

 observers' work therein referred to. To particularise, on p. 5 we 



are told that " Professor Allman was the first to establish the 



fact that the spawn of the herring .... adheres to solid objects in the 

 water." This was in 1862 ; yet more than half-a-century before, i.e. 

 in 1803, Professor Walker gave an accurate account of the spawning 

 of the herring, which had been also well known to fishermen years 

 and years before. Later, in i860. Dr. Boeck, acting under the 

 Norwegian Government, produced an exhaustive work upon the 

 spawning of this species, and also contested the suggestion that 

 shoals of herrings performed vast annual migrations from the north. 

 Mr. Cunningham is not the first scientific writer to ignore the early 

 literature of the herring and its reproductive habits. Again, 

 Professor Mcintosh was appointed to " make observations " under 

 the Royal Commission in 1883 and not in 1884 (p. 14), and from his 

 Report it appears that the instructions of the Commission were 

 carried out with an accuracy seldom excelled. One would hardly 

 conclude this from the author's remarks upon it. Further on we 

 note, — " Professor Huxley was unable to take any part in drawing 

 up the Report, and therefore did not share in the responsibility for its 

 conclusions and recommendations." (p. 15). In point of fact, the 

 Report was subjected to his inspection, and he especially referred to 

 the scientific part as a most valuable contribution. 



On p. 8 is the following remarkable sentence : — " The investiga- 

 tion of problems relating to the fisheries is not of a kind to attract 

 voluntary private effort. It does not promise great individual rewards 

 in the shape of either fame or fortune, nor are the researches of that 

 abstract philosophical kind, which, like virtue, are their own reward, 

 and are therefore pursued for their own sake with no ulterior object." 

 This may be the opinion of the author from his own standpoint ; but 

 to follow up such a dogmatic statement with references to the work of 

 Professor Mcintosh, Mr. Duncan Matthews, and a number of other 

 naturalists, is, at the least, calculated to convey a wrong impression as 

 to the motives underlying their labours. 



With reference to the second point, we have no hesitation in 

 saying that the investigations of the St. Andrews School (with the 

 single exception of Mr. Holt, who, trained at St. Andrews, later 

 became more intimately connected with the Marine Biological 

 Association) have been either studiously ignored or merely referred to 

 in a casual way. " Professor Mcintosh and his pupils and assistants " 

 (the order is quaint but perhaps euphonious) " describe as usual the 

 results, etc. " (p. 30), and three or four references of the same kind 

 serve to indicate the work of the St. Andrews Laboratory, which 

 afforded the greater proportion of the facts narrated in Part II. of the 

 work before us. 



Such misrepresentations are already bearing their fruit, as may be 

 seen in the Spectator of December 19th, in which appeared an 

 extraordinary article " On the practical study of fish." The anonymous 

 author unblushingly ascribes to Mr. Cunningham the discovery that 



