NOTES AND QUERIES. 3807 
and—most important of all—a large number of the Species described are 
accurately figured. Beautiful as many of the drawings are, and carefully 
lithographed by Mintern Brothers, whose work in this respect it would be 
difficult to excel, it is to be regretted that the Government of India did 
not afford that financial support which would have admitted of the plates 
being coloured. This indeed would have been a boon, for everyone knows 
how gorgeous are the hues of tropical fishes, and how very evanescent 
these colours are. But we have much to be thankful for in the work as it 
stands, with the Supplement to it which appeared only last year.* Still 
more reason have we to be grateful that the author’s life was spared long 
enough to enable him to furnish Dr. Blanford, as editor of the new ‘ Fauna 
of British India,’ with the MS. of two volumes on the Fishes, one of which 
has just been published, in which we shall happily find the latest views of 
the most competent authority on Indian Ichthyology. During the last few 
years of his life much of his time was spent at Howietown with Sir James 
R. G. Maitland, whose successful efforts there to establish a fish-farm and 
school for fish-culture were considerably aided, we may assume, by the 
knowledge and practical advice which Dr. Day was well able to bestow, until 
failing health caused him to return to his home at Cheltenham. Foreseeing 
that the end was near, Dr. Day resigned himself with calmness to the 
inevitable, and with that liberality which always characterized him through 
life, he made valuable presents of books from his library (including bound 
volumes of his collected papers) to the Linnean and Zoological Societies, of 
which he was a Fellow, and a series of fishes from his large collections to 
the Natural History Museum, in furtherance of the science which he had 
made a livelong hobby. His death will be a loss not only to ichthyologists 
in all parts of the world with whom he was in correspondence, but to many 
a poor fisherman in this country in whom he took interest, and to whom 
When occasion offered, he delighted to do “‘a good turn.” A certain 
brusqueness of manner sometimes caused him to be misunderstood by 
those who did not know him well, and a warm temperament led to his 
resenting such misunderstandings, instead of trying, as others might have 
done, to remove them. Nevertheless, beneath this brusque exterior there 
was a kind heart and a genuineness of purpose which one could not but 
admire. If his teaching, ichthyologically speaking, was not always couched 
in the clearest language, at least one felt sure that his statements might 
be relied upon, so anxiously did he strive to be accurate in what he wrote. 
His acquaintance with the literature of his subject, combined with long 
practical experience, enabled him not only to correct the mistakes of other 
authors, but to make very important additions to the Natural History of 


* We understand that the entire stock of this work, with the Supplement, 
is now in the hands of Mr. Wheldon, 58, Great Queen Street. 
