1897] Review— Life-Histories of Fishes. 141 



LIFE-HISTORIES OF FISHES. 



The late Frank Buckland, two days before his death in 

 December 1880, wrote : " We want to know the times and places 

 of the spawning- of sea fish. Where do the soles lay their eggs ? 

 When and how do the plaice, turbot, brill, halibut, &c., spawn ? " 

 Buckland, it is true, was not an exact scientific investigator : but 

 he was an untiring enthusiast who turned to account every 

 opportunity for obtaining knowledge about fishes. His queries 

 show how little was known about the life-history of fishes, 

 especially sea fishes, less that twenty years ago. But a great 

 change has happily been accomplished and the issue of a hand- 

 some volume condensing existing knowledge upon this import- 

 ant subject by Dr. Mcintosh, Professor of Natural History in 

 St. Andrews University, Scotland, and Mr. A. T. Masterman, 

 Assistant Professor in the same University, marks an epoch in 

 Ichthyology. Printed at the Cambridge University Press, Eng- 

 land, this book, entitled " British Marine Food-Fishes," is the 

 most notable work published up to this time on the eggs and 

 young of fishes. It is a handsome volume of 516 pages, with 

 twenty beautiful plates, and a coloured frontispiece, and 

 w^orthily summarises the results of researches during the last 

 twenty years by scientific workers on both sides of the Atlantic. 



Wide as the subject of fish-development is, the ground 

 covered by the authors is wider still, and apart from the object- 

 ion that some of the marine species described have only indirectly 

 any economic importance, scientific readers generally will be very 

 grateful for this, and for the comprehensive account given in 

 Chapter III on pelagic fauna, i.e., the succession of life, verte- 

 brate and invertebrate, in the sea during the twelve months of 

 the year. The important and interesting nature of the subject 

 gives the book an unusual valu,e but its numerous beautiful 

 illustrations and lucid descriptions, it is a work that no zoologist 



