156 



NATURE 



[Dec. 21, 1876 



Concise Instructions in the Art of Retouching. By Bur- 

 rows and Colton. (London : Marion and Co, 22 and 

 23, Soho Square, 1876.) 

 For some years past a conviction has been growing 

 amongst the better class of professional photographers 

 that their art alone, even under the most perfect condi- 

 tions, is unable to produce an artistically perfect portrait, 

 a proposition, by the way, for which the true artist has all 

 along contended in the face of the constant assertion of 

 the converse by fanatical advocates of " sun-painling " 

 pur et simple. The victory having at last rested with the 

 artists, a number of books on retouching have been pub- 

 lished, each professing to give the true method of at once 

 producing artistic pictures. 



We are glad to see that in the present little work the 

 authors disclaim any such intention, but, on the contrary, 

 proceed solely to instruct their pupils in the work before 

 them, which we may here inform the uninitiated is no 

 less a one than that of restoring, so to speak, on a photo- 

 graphic negative those injuries 10 a face which may have 

 been caused by imperfect lighting and defects, such as 

 dust, &c., in the film ; or disease or physical injury to the 

 face itself. In fact, the art of the re-toucher is to convey 

 to a photograph a certain amount of that idealisation 

 always manifest in the works of the painter, the want of 

 which is the unknown cause so often producing a feeling 

 of dissatisfaction even with the best of photographs. 



To carry cut their aim, the authors give two very good 

 lithographs of the muscles of the face and head, with two 

 more of the same model covered with the flesh. Two 

 negatives on a flexible film (apparently taken by War- 

 nerke's process) are also added as examples of the work 

 to be done. The descriptive matter is concisely put, and 

 is clear and to the point. We have little doubt that the 

 book will be of service to many amateur and professional 

 portrait photographers. R. J. F. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\Ilic Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 N'o ttotice is taken of anonymous commtinicationsi\ 



Sea Fisheries 



I HAD hoped that Mr. Ho'.dsworth, in the rejoinder which he 

 told me he was preparing to my former letter (Nature, vol. xv. 

 p. 55) would have confined himself to defending the assertions 

 he had before made, or at most to rebutdng the evidence I had 

 adduced in reply to them. In this case 1 should have gladly 

 left the matters at issue between him and me to the judgment of 

 the public. Unfortunately he has thought it needful for the sake 

 of the cause he adopts to introduce some new assumptions and 

 charges, conveyed in language of a rather vigorous kind, so that 

 out of regard to the good opinion of your readers, 1 am driven 

 again to trespass on their forbearance and yours. But in doing 

 this I shall try to be as brief as possible, and however much my 

 friend may have exceeded the limits of a rejoinder, not to follow 

 his example. 



All will fully agree with Mr. Holdsworth that an " index is 

 not a /;-/«>," but few will deny that an index is a valuable aid to 

 mastering the contents of a book. If he says that this particular 

 index is a bad one, I must leave him to settle with the maker of 

 it. If it is neither bad nor good it may be misleading unless the 

 user of it looks pretty carefully into the text. But if it is good, 

 as I beheve, it gives the reader the best of all help in acqainiing 

 himself with the huge volume, and by its help nobody need fear 

 falling into dangerous mistakes. It does not seem to me that I 

 have fallen into such. The errors which ray friend asserts I 

 have made are, if errors at all, veiy trivial, and as one tells for, 

 and the other against, his views, thty may be safely paired off to 

 the detriment of neither side. As to the figures set in the last 

 column of my table, against "Cod and Ling," they ought to 

 have been "33 "instead of "38" — a mistake in copying or 

 printing which escaped my observation till now. I freely give 

 Mr. Holdsworth the benefit of it. The next two paragraphs of 

 his letter have afforded me some merriment, though chastened by 



the thought that he must have a very low opinion of me if he 

 seriously supposes I am ignorant of the notorious reputation of 

 the dog-fish. Whether " predatory fishes," however, are neces- 

 sarily "mischievous," so that the two epithets should be closely 

 linked together, as though one was the consequence of the other, 

 is a large question, upon which I shall not enter. But surely it 

 is obvious that the prevalence of predatory fishes is more or less 

 a measure of the prevalence of their prey, and as the blind man 

 judged of the value of the field by asking how many thistles 

 grew on it, so may we judge of the abundance or scarcity of other 

 lishes by the abundance or scarcity of the dog-fish. Might I 

 here apply to Mr. Holdsworth an expression of his own to my- 

 self, and say that, from these paragraphs, I am justified in be- 

 lieving him unable to comprehend one of the simplest relations 

 of animal life ? 



As to herrings, I pretend to no greater knowledge of their 

 natural history than other people do. I do not see why I should 

 be accounted more ignorant, or attempting to conceal that ignor- 

 ance, by any mysterious evolutionary process from my inner 

 consciousness or elsewhere. The herring is admittedly not 

 ubiquitous in the sea, i.e., it has, like other animals, its more or 

 less definite range. It therefore has " borders," though even 

 Mr. Holdsworth cannot lay them down exactly. My friend is 

 pleased "to doubt very much" whether I "had given five 

 minutes' attention to the practical study of the habits of the 

 herring — to its life-history " before I wrote my Glasgow address. 

 That rather depends on what may be cilled " practical study." 

 Has Mr. Ploldsworth ever heard of a " water-telescope " — an 

 instrument of v/hich I can find no mention in his book — or has 

 he ever looked through one ? If, when the days get a little 

 longer and the steamers are running conveniently, he will cross 

 to Norway and follow the coast to the Lofoden Islands (perhaps 

 he need not even go so far), he will possibly appreciate the value 

 of these remarks, and will be doing what I did more than twenty 

 years ago. 



The next five paragraphs of Mr. Iloldsworth's rejoinder seem 

 to contain very fair comments on what I had urged, and, though 

 I do not thereby assent to them, I may say that had the rest 

 been of apiece with them I should not now be troubling you. I 

 must, however, express my disappointment that in what follows 

 no definite information is given as to the sea-fishes which are so 

 often said to be devoured by sea-birds. Here is room for almost 

 any amount of new and interesting observations, whether those 

 observations affect his argument or not. He, not I, introduced 

 the topic, for reasons I suppose kirown to himself, but not to 

 be guessed at by me. He now seems to consider it, as I did, 

 irrelevant. 



Then as to Prof. Baird's reports. Far be it from me to find 

 fault with my friend for fishing out the two passages which, as 

 he thinks, tell in his favour. But these relate to two particidar 

 kinds of fishes^ — the ale wife and the cod — -the former raaiidyas 

 furnishing food to the latter, and I never said that to over-fishing 

 only was the dimmution in every case due. The decrease of the 

 cod is ascribed by Prof. B.aird to the decrease of the alewife, and 

 this, he says, is caused by the erection in the tidal rivers of im- 

 passable dams or of weirs by means of which every fish ascend- 

 ing the river to spawn was caught. Surely this was " over-fish- 

 ing." In the first of his reports this question is considered far 

 more generally and closely than in the second, from which Mr. 

 Iloldsworth's extracts are taken, yet there is nothing in the 

 latter really to contradict the conclusions arrived at in the 

 former. Hence I infer that they are still upheld by their 

 author, and their nature may be seen by the following citations 

 from his "General Summary of Results" (Part I., pp. 38, 



39) :— 



" I. The alleged decrease in the number of food- fishes in these 

 waters within the la^t few years has been fully substantiated. 



" II. The shore-fishes have been decreasing durin ^ the paij 

 twenty years, gradually at first, but much more abruptly froi( 

 about the year 1865, the reduction by the year 1871 being ( 

 great as entirely to prevent any successful summer- fishing wil 

 the hook and line, and leaving to the traps and pounds the burd< 

 of supplying the markets. This statement applies also, but p€ 

 haps to a certain extent, to the blue-fish. The decrease in th^ 

 numbers first manifested itself about ten years ago, and is golll 

 on quite rapidly until now. 



" HI. This period of decrease represents the time during which 

 the traps and pounds have been well established, their operations 



I The menhaden and ihe mackarel are indeed mentioned, but incideatally 

 and with some uncertainty. 



