Bibliographical! Notices. 403 
postlarva, their inherent stages and changes, their wanderings, and 
so on; the further growth of the young fish, their habits, migra- 
tion, food, &e.; sexual maturity and conditions respecting the 
adults ; differences in development, habits, &c. of families and species 
of a genus, and other significant facts connected with their life- 
histories ; besides matter of a kind affecting the fisheries—-altogether 
a vast store of information. 
What is denoted as “ Ontogenic migration,” that movement 
towards and from the shallow shores and estuaries again to deep 
water, of the larval and postlarval forms, and which is shared by 
several families, Pleuronectide included, is rather ingeniously 
indicated graphically in diagrams in the case of the lesser sand-eel 
and the herring. These both have a spring and autumn spawning- 
period, which overlap each other, and the young and older stages 
get mixed shorewise, so that it has been puzzling to ascertain their 
age and rate of growth. To these diagrams the Italian phrase 
se non é€ vero € ben trovato appears applicable. 
In discussing Delage’s discovery of the transformation of that 
curious form Leptocephalus Morrisi into a young conger, and the 
further observations of Grassi and Calandruccio on ZL. brevirostris in 
relation to the eel, our authors seem to throw cold water on the 
question. They boldly ask:—(a) What is the normal habitat of 
the Leptocephali, at least L. brevirostris and L. Morristi? (6) Why 
are they not found in abundance on our coasts? (¢) Do abnormal 
Leptocephali occur, or, indeed, is a Leptocephaline stage a normal 
part of the Mureenoid life-history at all? It is worth while 
remarking that Giinther (‘Study of Fishes’) regards L. Morrisii as 
an abnormal larval condition of the conger, and he suggests that 
shore-spawning fish-ova through untoward circumstances hatched in 
mid-ovean may not develop or attain their normal growth. 
But we have said enough to justify our preliminary remarks, that 
the St. Andrews volume is both interesting and likely to prove 
useful. 
In only one sentence is a solitary plaint heard, for otherwise 
throughout the tone is cheerful and encouraging. It runs thus :— 
‘‘The authorities entrusted with the patronage of posts in which 
marine zoology could be studied as a rule and with a singular 
impartiality [szc] filled them with those accustomed to other depart- 
ments of the subject, while men imbued with enthusiasm for marine 
zoology are stationed far inland.” The old story of the angular 
man stuck in the round hole. By-the-bye, was not that high-souled, 
most eminently gifted naturalist Louis Agassiz spurned the Edin- 
burgh chair, when the authorities should have felt proud of his 
application? We believe even Darwin would have been refused on 
the same grounds given by the objectors. Sic transit gloria mundi! 
