REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 183 
is the meagerness of the information respecting habits of species. 
There are some statistical data concerning the mackerel, herring, and 
cod, some observations on the habits of the sun-fish, toad-fish, and 
trout, and briefer references to others, but the parental care exercised 
by the sticklebacks and cat-fishes, and the peculiarities of others, are 
not eyen alluded to. Comparatively little was known in those days of 
such matters, it is true, but information about the characteristics 
mentioned was already existent in the literature. 
The best part of the work is the collection of plates. These are 
really for the most part excellent and among the best that have ever 
been published. Most of them were prepared by A. Sonrel, who had 
been trained for such work by Louis Agassiz. But the want of super- 
vision was occasionally evident even here. For example, adopting the 
fashion then prevalent, scales from the back and lateral line were 
illustrated for almost every scaly fish. Now the most characteristic 
feature of the scales of the sparoid fishes is the divergence of the 
strie across the field above and below and their intersection of the 
margins. Sonrel had represented the fine concentric strie of the 
scales of the early families correctly, but, in place of well-marked 
striee for the sparoids, he gave meaningless dots (pl. 10, f. 2, 3, 5, 6); 
apparently he had perceived something anomalous to him in the 
sparoid scales, but was afraid to represent what he saw and adopted 
the device of obscurity and ambiguity expressed in punctulation. 
Another case of bad iconography was exhibited in the figure of the 
so-called Blennins serpentinus (pl. 17, f.1.) Storer conceived for this 
fish a very deeply divided dorsal whose parts were ‘‘ connected bya 
membrane ” (p. 91). Probably the fin had been injured; in a perfect 
specimen the fin is uninterrupted. Theartist may have been influenced 
by the ichthyologist; possibly the ichthyologist may have been misled 
by the artist; anyway, the representation of the fin accords with the 
description and not with nature. 
It will be evident that all the criticisms that have been passed on 
the History are those that might have been made at the time the parts 
were published. In the allocation of some of the genera and species 
the author sinned against his own definitions. His nomenclature has 
not been considered as such and need not be. Respecting that, hear 
what his obituary biographer had to say: ‘‘In the time that has 
passed since its publication we have changed our ideals of names, and 
discoveries of new genera or species, or in the anatomy, have com- 
pelled changes in our system. The nomenclature of the book has 
become somewhat antiquated, and the systematic arrangement is not 
entirely suited to the present time.” His eulogist has further truly 
remarked that Doctor Storer ‘‘used little of his energy in searching 
for generalizations.” In fact, the only evidences he has left of any 
attempts at generalization were a simple table of the geographical dis- 
