1874.] Notices of Books. 405 
been selected. Surely economy in cost and bulk is purchased 
too dearly at the risk of impaired eyesight. The syllabus of 
Practical Taxidermy will be found very useful to incipient 
naturalists. 
United States Commission on Fish and Fisheries. Commissioners’ 
Report, 1871-1872. The Fisheries of the South Coast of 
New England. Washington: Government Printing Office. 
THis is a most elaborate ‘‘ Blue Book,” extending to 850 pages, 
and abundantly illustrated. The condition of American fisheries, 
the arguments in favour of their regulation by law, the reports 
of state commissions and of European authorities on this sub- 
ject are given with great minuteness. We find also a description 
of the various kinds of apparatus used in capturing fish on the 
sea-coast and lakes of the United States, and of patents granted 
to the end of 1872 for inventions relative to the capture, utilisa- 
tion, or cultivation of fish and marine animals. 
The greater part of the volume, however,—and this is a 
feature to which we desire to call special attention,—is taken up 
with matter specially interesting to the naturalist. There is a 
report of Dr. Farlow on the sea-weeds of the south coast of 
New England, and one by Mr. A. E. Verrill on the invertebrate 
animals of Vineyard Sound and the adjacent waters, with an 
account of the physical characters of the region. We must call 
particular attention to the list of species found in the stomach 
of fishes, as throwing a valuable light on their food, and to a 
paper on the metamorphoses of the lobster and other crustaceans. 
Mr. Theodore Gill’s catalogue of the fishes found on the east 
coast of North America, and Mr. S. F. Baird’s list of fishes 
collected at Wood’s Hole Harbour, with the table of tem- 
peratures for the year 1873, also furnish valuable data for the 
student of marine zoology. Very curious are the quaint re- 
ports on the fauna, terrestrial as well as aquatic, of New 
England and the other Atlantic Districts in the old colonial days. 
A ‘‘squiril” is described as ‘‘ red, and he haunts our houses, and 
will rob us of our Corne, but the Catt many times payes him the 
price of his presumption.” Here is a hint which we commend 
to the professors of cookery at South Kensington :—‘‘ We used 
to qualifie a pickled Herrin by boiling of himin milk.” Scientific 
controversy was, in those days, carried on with some disregard 
of courtesy. ‘‘ One writes that the fat in the bone of a Basse’s 
head is is braines, which is a lye.” 
The whole volume is highly creditable to its compilers as well 
as to the Government which has ordered its publication. 
WOL. IV. (N:S.) 3F 
