146 Bibliography. 
We look with no little gratification upon this addition to American 
Zoological literature, by an American naturalist. Both the design and 
the execution are most happy. When it was undertaken, no work 
embodied descriptions of any considerable portion of North American 
fishes. Since then, the labors of Dr. Dekay have, in some measure, sup- 
plied this deficiency. Nevertheless, a compact work, which might be 
readily consulted, exhibiting at one view a list of all the fishes that have 
been noticed, a concise description of them, and references to figures 
and more full descriptions, and whatever had been published con- 
cerning them, was just the thing wanted; and it was something which 
could not be effected without great research and labor. This has now | 
been accomplished, by untiring perseverance, during hours stolen from 
severe professional duty, umder much physical disability as we happen to 
know, and in a manner which reflects great credit upon its author. 
No one who has not undertaken thus to gather in, from volumes in 
various languages, from scientific and literary periodicals, and even 
from newspapers, the scattered descriptions of objects, then plotting 
them out into a harmonious whole, and thus opening a fair field on 
which future investigations may rest, can have a just idea of the labor 
requisite. In the present instance we notice that not less than seventy- 
five different volumes, many of them rare and difficult of access, have 
been consulted. Dr. Storer has thus placed this little library in the 
hands of every student of American ichthyology. Nothing tends more 
to throw a chill over the ardor of inquiry, than the apprehension that 
we may be laboring upon what is already understood, or the conscious- 
ness that we have no means, without disproportionate labor, of gaining 
satisfaction on the point. On the other hand, nothing tends more to 
encourage the solitary inquirer than the conviction, that whatever he 
observes which is not noticed ina certain book before him, is pretty 
sure to be novel. In spite of the want of facilities, ichthyology, like 
the other branches of zodlogy, has already many worthy votaries among 
us, as the names of Dekay, Holbrook, Kirtland, Ayres, Olmsted and 
Storer, will attest. But we may now safely predict that the work be- 
fore us will bring out an army of recruits, who, by possessing them- 
selves of the scientific treasures about them, will speedily augment 
greatly the list now published. 
Dr. Storer’s list enumerates 741 species, belonging to 221 genera 
and 35 families. In it are included all the fishes that have been noted — 
as inhabitants of all the waters which wash the coast of North America, 
the south and west as well as the north and east. The character of 
each family, genus and.species are given, with the localities of the 
‘last, and the authority for the localities, and also a very full listof sy- 
nonyms. The descriptions of all the fishes which have been seen by — 
witli! 
