September 7, 1893] 



NA TURE 



44 [ 



supposed to belong to the Echinoderms. What can be 

 more unlike each other than male and female oi Bonellia 

 viridis ? How long did it talce to ascertain the true 

 relation of the so-called Hectocotylus to the Cephalopods ? 

 And only a few years ago a simple appendage of a 

 well-known mollusc, Tethys, was described as a special 

 genus by one of the most distinguished French zoologists. 

 Such being thedifficul ties it can hardly be wondered at that, 

 for instance, the same species of a Pycnogonidhas had the 

 honour of being described under nine specific and generic 

 names, the greater part of them even by the same author, 

 because he ignored that male and female differed, and 

 that their larval stages again differed from each other 

 and from the adult. 



It was then that I planned the publication of a great 

 series of monographs under the title "Fauna and 

 Flora of the Gulf of Naples." Several of my assistants 

 and myself set to work, each one selecting a group of 

 lower marine animals. The main object of these mono- 

 graphs was to create a firm basis for systematical know- 

 ledge, but in the meantime I left everybody free to 

 incoi-porate as much of anatomy, histology, and 

 embryology as he thought convenient, thus giving 

 greater variety to the monographs, and leaving the 

 authors free to follow up those lines of research for 

 which they had the greatest interest. 



I wished to lay great stress upon illustrations. In 

 looking over the existing iconography of the lower 

 marine animals, and comparing them with those of ter- 

 restrial animals, the inferiority of existing illustrations of 

 the former was apparent, and especially as regards the 

 reproduction of the colouring of the living marine organ- 

 isms. Colour in animals may have relatively little 

 scientific interest compared with structure, nevertheless 

 it has a meaning, and its good reproduction facilitates 

 greatly the recognition of the species. Besides, practi- 

 cal reasons spoke very much in favour of good coloured 

 illustrations a» a means to facilitate the sale of the mono- 

 graphs, which were to be published on subscription, and 

 as the safest way for covering the great expenses which 

 were to be incurred. 



I remember in this regard a conversation which 1 had 

 with the great German publisher, Wilh. Engelmann, of 

 Leipzig, to whom I offered the commission of all the 

 publications of the Zoological Station. When discussing 

 the project of the " Fauna and Flora " I asked his advice 

 as to the number of copies to be printed, and proposed 

 myself 500. Engelmann almost fainted when I pro- 

 nounced that number. " My dear friend," exclaimed he, 

 "you are going to ruin yourself 1 There is not the re- 

 motest possibility of such a number ! Of such costly 

 publications as you project hardly one hundred copies 

 are sold, and if we print 150 copies, it will be more than 

 enough." I remonstrated, and insisted on at least 300, 

 and as I intended to pay all the expenses. Dr. Engel- 

 mann on his side kindly reducing the cost of commission 

 to five per cent., I felt pretty safe, to find the necessary 

 number of subscribers in the course of time— a confidence 

 which was not in the least shared by Dr. Engelmann, 

 who called me a Phanta5t,and a Utopian— denominations 

 to which I had already become so much used that they 

 made hardly any impression upon me. And I have only 

 to regret that I did not insist on my first proposition, for 

 the first volume of the " Fauna and Flora," the mono- 

 graph on the Ctenophora by Prof. Chun, has been out 

 of print for almost ten years, and single copies are sold 

 at double the original price. 



The secret of this success consisted largely in the 

 magnificent plates which accompanied this and the 

 following volumes. It is true that the high scientific 

 standard of these monographs and the low rate of sub 

 scription for them caused their sale among all the more 

 important libraries and universities, but the large number 



NO. 1245, 'VOL. 48] 



of public and private libraries who subscribed to the 

 " Fauna and Flora" did so partly out of sympathy for 

 the Zoological Station, and partly out of enthusiasm for 

 the splendid illustrations which accompany the greater 

 part of the nineteen published volumes, and are executed 

 in the most masterly way by the celebrated lithographic 

 firm of Werner and Winter, at Frankfurt-on-Maine. In 

 fact, it is not too much to say that the world-wide fame 

 of this firm has partly been created by the first volume 

 of the " Fauna and Flora of the Gulf of Naples," whose 

 illustrations were all personally engraved by Mr. Winter 

 himself. 



It is doubtless true that the cost of production of these 

 plates is very great ; nevertheless, I may be permitted 

 to state that the balance-sheet of the '' Fauna and Flora " 

 shows how justly I appreciated the chances when I 

 began this large publication ; and though since the last 

 four or five years the number of subscribers has de- 

 creased, chiefly by death, the Zoological Station hopes, 

 nevertheless, to continue the series of monographs in the 

 same way for many years to come. 



The volume which I have under review is a very 

 fair specimen of the value of these plates, for 1 hardly 

 say too much if I state my conviction that nowhere have 

 illustrations of Copepoda been produced to rival those 

 of Dr. Giesbrecht's volume. One can hardly look on the 

 first five plates without wishing that some of these fan- 

 tastical and splendid figures might find their way even 

 beyond the range of scientific literature, and serve as 

 decorative elements in art and industry, where birds, 

 butterflies, and flowers already occupy such an enormous 

 field. 



Thirty years have elapsed since the appearance of 

 Claus's well-known monograph of the free-living Cope- 

 poda. Many smaller, and even some larger works havf 

 been published in the interval, enlarging the field to such 

 a degree that it seemed advisable to divide the whole 

 group into several parts for a new monographical study. 

 Dr. Giesbrecht selected the /fAr^zV marine forms instead 

 of the littoral ones, partly on account of their better 

 qualification for anatomical and ontogenetical re- 

 searches, partly because they are yet less known than 

 the others, and lastly, because he thinks they include 

 the more ancestral forms of the whole entomostracous 

 crustaceans. The bulky volume lying before us forms only 

 the first part of the monograph, treating the systematical 

 and faunistical chapters. But as such it gives much 

 more than its title announces, for not only have the 

 pelagic Copepoda of the Gulf of Naples been examined, 

 but the whole mass of forms resulting from the oceanic 

 cruise of the Veitor Pisani, an Italian corvette, and 

 captured and carefully preserved by Capt. Chierchia, 

 so well known among biologists, are included in Gies- 

 brecht's work. Altogether, this volume treats of 298 

 species of pelagic Copepoda ; 125 belong to the fauna of 

 the Gulf of Naples, whilst 229 have been captured by 

 Capt. Chierchia all over the globe. If one compares 

 the last number with that of the Challenger expedition, 

 where only 85 species of Copepoda are reported, one 

 can imagine with what industry Capt. Chierchia went 

 to work, and how carefully Dr. Giesbrecht examined the 

 material. 



The descriptions of the author are extraordinarily 

 detailed ; nevertheless he obviates great bulkiness 

 and repetition, having introduced abbreviations for 

 homological parts of the body and the extremities, 

 which are also adopted on the plates. Moreover, the 

 single species are not described one after the other, as 

 is usually the case, but those belonging to the same 

 genus are treated as a whole, their differences being 

 treated in a diagnosis and by the help of synoptical 

 lists (pp. 706-766) and indication of the plates where 

 their specific characteristics are figured, the determina- 



