NATURE 



213 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1881 



DR. GUNTHER ON FISHES 

 An Introdu'tion to the Study of Fishes. By Albert C. L. 

 G. Gunther, M.A., M.D., Ph.D , F.R.S., Keeper of the 

 Zoological Departnient in the British Museum. (Edin- 

 burgh : A. and C. Black, 1880.) 



A GENERAL work on Fishes could not have been 

 undertaken by a more thoroughly qualified writer 

 than Dr. Gunther. Twenty years ago and more he com- 

 menced studying the collection of this ever-interesting 

 and most important group in the vaults of the British 

 Museum, with what success let not only the present fine 

 collection of fish in the National Museum declare, but 

 also that truly wonderful work, to be the product of one 

 man's labours, "The Catalogue of Fishes," in eight 

 volumes, published by order of the Trustees of the British 

 Museum. Fishes have always been a subject of great 

 interest to mankind ; their commercial value interests 

 some, others, as keen sportsmen, could not exist without 

 their finny prey ; from the earliest times, and among 

 the earliest records, we find them of importance as articles 

 of food. To the man of science, be he or be he not a 

 specialist, fishes are of an ever-increasing interest, placed 

 at the very beginning of vertebrate life, and by their study 

 we seem to see more clearly into the evolution of that life 

 which culminated in the production of ourselves. 



A book to tell us in carefully selected generalities all 

 about fishes : such the English reader had no access to, 

 until the publication of this volume. If it come not up to 

 a perfect standard how could it be otherwise,for had not the 

 history of the structure of fish, their habits, their distribu- 

 tion, their classification to be condensed within the limit 

 of a few hundred pages, and the wonder is that so much 

 will be found here given, not that a few things have been 

 left unnoticed or but partially touched upon. We have 

 looked over each page of the handsomely got-up, well- 

 printed, and well-illustrated volume, and we feel certain 

 that it must find a place on the shelf of all biologists, 

 and that it will find a place in the libraries also of that 

 vastly larger class, the intelligent general reader. 



The first and slightly smaller half of the volume treats 

 of fishe; in general ; the second half of fishes from a 

 systematic and descriptive point of view. The work 

 opens with an account of the history and literature of the 

 subject beginnin,? with Aristotle ; who had a perfect 

 knowledge of the general structure of fish, and who 

 wrote about them some three and a half centuries be- 

 fore the Christian era ; which account is continued to 

 the most recent times ; the work done by Ray, Artedi, 

 Linneus, Bloch, Lacdp&de, Cuvie'r, Agassiz, Midler, being 

 passed in review. The next twelve chipters treat of 

 the external morphology of fish and of tlieir internal 

 structure. We would have liked more details about the 

 recent researches into the modifications to be met with in 

 fishes' tails ; the description of the electrical organs to be 

 met with in some fish is far too brief; the myology of 

 fishes is dismissed with a little over a page, as if it were 

 not a favourite subject with the author, and yet it is one 

 worth working at and by no means deficient in promise. 

 In the chapter on Respiration the subject of the tempera- 

 Voi.. XXIII. — No. 5S4 



ture in fishes is scarcely alluded to ; the chapter on the 

 Reproductive Instincts of Fish is sure to interest the 

 readers, some of whom may learn for the first time of 

 female fishes taking care of their progeny, aad more 

 curious, of male fishes doing the same. The chapter on 

 the Growth and Variation of Fishes is well illustrated by 

 woodcuts of some remarkable changes of form in fish. 

 The fourteenth chapter treats of domesticated and ac- 

 climatised fishes, on the artificial impregnation of ova, 

 tenacity of life and reproduction of lost parts, hybernation 

 in fishes (a misuse of this term), useful and poisonous 

 fishes. The uses of fishes to man our author disposes of 

 in twelve lines, and it would almost seem as if he would 

 rather not have referred to such a subiect at all in the 

 scientific part of this treatise. In these twelve lines we 

 find the following: — "In the Polar regions especially whole 

 tribes are entirely dependent on this class for subsi ,tence." 

 Without venturing on criticism we would ask. Is this so.'' 

 Do the inhabitants of the Polar regions support their life 

 wholly on fish, or are they not indebted for a large portion 

 of their heat-producing food to the flesh or blubber of 

 mammals.'' and do not the inhabitants of tropical countries, 

 on the contrary, manage often to support their existence 

 almost entirely on fish food ? 



While the chapters concerning the distribution of fishes 

 in time leave a good deal to be desired, those on the 

 distribution of fishes in space are most excellent ; that on 

 the fishes of the deep sea contains a complete list of deep- 

 sea forms with the depths as ascertained by the dredgings 

 of the Clialleiigei;vi\i\ch. list contains apparently over 100 

 species. Before the voyage of the Challenger scarcely 

 thirty deep-sea fishes were known. Though this number 

 has been now so very much increased yet no new types 

 of families have been discovered. Perfectly novel and 

 very interesting modifications of certain organs have been 

 met with, but nothing more than what m'ght have been 

 expected from our previous knowledge of the group. The 

 greatest depth reached hitherto by a dredge in which 

 fishes were inclosed is 2900 fathoms; but the specimens ' 

 then obtained belong to a species {Gonostoma inicrod >ii), 

 which would seem to be extremely abundant in the upper 

 strata of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and were very 

 probably caught by the dredge in its ascent. The next 

 greatest depth, 2750 fathoms, must be accepted as one at 

 which fishes undoubtedly do live. The fish obtained at 

 this depth in the Atlantic, Bathyophis fero.v, showing by 

 its whole Inbit that it is a form living on the bottom of 

 the ocean. 



" The fish fauna of the deep sea," writes Dr. Gunther, 

 "is composed chiefly of forms or modifications of 

 forms which we find represented at the surface in the 

 cold or temperate zones, or which appear as nocturnal 

 pelagic forms." The Chondropterygians are few in 

 number, not descending to a depth of more than 600 

 fathoms. The Acanthopterygians, which form the majority 

 of the coast and surface faunas, are also s;antily repre- 

 sented ; genera identical with surface types are confined 

 to the same inconsiderable depths as the Chondro- 

 pterygians, while those Acanthopterygians which are so 

 much specialised for the life in the deep sea as to deserve 

 generic separation, range from 200 to 2400 fathoms. 

 Three distinct families belong to the deep sea fauna, viz. 

 Trachypteridic, Lophotidas, and Notacanthidas ; they 



