REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 183 



is the meag-ernesj? of the information respecting- hahits of species. 

 There are some statistical data concerning the mackerel, herring, and 

 cod, some observations on the habits of the sun-fish, toad-fish, and 

 trout, and briefer references to others, but the parental care exercised 

 b}' the sticklebacks and cat-fishes, and the peculiarities of others, are 

 not even alluded to. Comparatively little was known in those days of 

 such matters, it is true, but information about the characteristics 

 mentioned was already existent in the literature. 



The best part of the work is the collection of plates. These are 

 really for the most part excellent and among the best that have ever 

 been published. Most of them were prepared by A. Sonrel, who had 

 been trained for such work by Louis Agassiz. But the want of super- 

 vision was occasionally evident even here. For example, adopting the 

 fashion then prevalent, scales from the back and lateral line were 

 illustrated for almost every scaly fish. Now the most characteristic 

 feature of the scales of the sparoid fishes is the divergence of the 

 strife across the field above and below and their intersection of the 

 margins. Sonrel had represented the fine concentric strite of the 

 scales of the earl}- families correctly, but, in place of well-marked 

 strife for the sparoids, he gave meaningless dots (pi. 10, f. 2, 3, 5, G); 

 apparently he had perceived something anomalous to him in the 

 sparoid scales, but was afraid to represent what he saw and adopted 

 the device of obscurity and ambiguity expressed in punctulation. 



Another case of bad iconography was exhibited in the figure of the 

 so-called Blennius sei^pentinns (pi. 17, f. 1.) Storer conceived for this 

 fish a very deeply divided dorsal whose parts were "connected by a 

 membrane" (p. 91). Probably the fin had been injured; in a perfect 

 specimen the fin is uninterrupted. The artist may have been intiuenced 

 by ^he ichth^'ologist ; possibly the ichthyologist may have been misled 

 by the artist; anyway, the representation of the fin accords with the 

 description and not with nature. 



It will be evident that all the criticisms that have been passed on 

 the History are those that might have been made at the time the parts 

 were published. In the allocation of some of the genera and species 

 the author sinned against his own definitions. His nomenclature has 

 not been considered as such and need not be. Respecting that, hear 

 Vvhat his obituary biographer had to say: "In the time that has 

 passed since its publication we have changed our ideals of names, and 

 discoveries of new genera or species, or in the anatomy, haA'e com- 

 pelled changes in our sA'stem. The nomenclature of the book has 

 become somewhat antiquated, and the systematic arrangement is not 

 entirel}' suited to the present time.'' His eulogist has further truly 

 remarked that Doctor Storer " used little of his energy in searching 

 for generalizations." In fact, the only evidences he has left of an}-^ 

 attempts at generalization were a simple table of the geographical dis- 



