576 



NATURE 



{April 2\, 1 88 1 



BRITISH FISHES 



Natural History of British Fishes : their Structure, 

 Economic Uses, and Capture by Net and Rod. Culti- 

 vation of Fish Ponds, Fish suited for Acclimatisation, 

 Artificial Breeding of Salmon. By Frank Buckland, 

 Inspector of Fisheries. (London : Society for Pro- 

 moting Christian Knowledge.) 



IT would have been difficult for Mr. Buckland to produce 

 a dull book on any question connected with the 

 economy of our fisheries ; his merit in this respect has 

 tended, however, to lead him too much in an opposite 

 direction. It is painful, now that we are deprived of the 

 living presence of the genial naturalist and industrious 

 fishery inspector, to write an unkind word regarding any 

 branch of his life's work ; but of this book we are com- 

 pelled to say that we would have appreciated it better had 

 it been less "familiar" and more scientific. That it 

 should be full of interesting information about fishery 

 matters was quite to be expected from the richness of the 

 stores which its author always had at his command, 

 and if Mr. Buckland had taken pains to digest the 

 matter so lavishly extracted from Land and Water, and 

 had likewise collated the miscellaneous information con- 

 tained in the volume with care, he might then have 

 enjoyed the satisfaction of presenting to the public a 

 natural history of British fishes which probably would 

 have compared satisfactorily with other good books of the 

 kind. It is not too much to affirm that a carefully 

 edited selection from the numerous essays contributed to 

 the various blue-books to which the deceased gentleman 

 was so voluminous a contributor, would have made a 

 more interesting volume than the present work. The fact 

 is, Mr. Buckland was nothing if he was not sketchy and 

 rapid ; he would not be tied down to severe statements, 

 but preferred to give an off-hand opinion in a dashing 

 way, no matter that he might find out within the year 

 that what he had advanced was very far wrong. In the 

 present volume, as a glance at the plethoric title-page will 

 show, Mr. Buckland attempted too much, with the result 

 that portions of the information conveyed are scrappy, 

 while some of it is probably slightly imaginative : boo'cs 

 and articles written in railway trains often enough provide 

 hard work for the reader. In a preface to his work Mr. 

 Buckland takes pains to point out how greatly we are 

 deficient in exact knowledge of the habits of our sea-fish, 

 of the times and places of their spawning, of the food they 

 eat, and of the period at which they are able to repeat the 

 story of their birth. Some of the many questions which 

 are asked by Mr. Buckland we are under the impres- 

 sion he should himself have been well able to answer. 

 Whether cods' eggs " sink or swim" has been often dis- 

 cussed, and the author ought to have been able to tell us 

 the truth in that matter ; but, on turning to the account 

 given of the cod-fish in the present book (p. 50), it seems 

 to be singularly deficient in its details of the natural 

 history of that animal. So far as we can observe, no 

 reference whatever is made to the theory of Sars with 

 reference to the floating of the eggs, but a few pages 

 relative to the personal adventures of the author are not 

 wanting, whilst the old story of "the Logan fish-pond'' 

 is re-told with great circumstantiality. Twenty-five pages 

 of the work are devoted to the salmon {Salmo salar). 



and the essay, confused as it is, is well worthy of 

 perusal, although it contains, as do other portions of 

 the book, a good deal about Mr. Buckland, and recapi- 

 tulates, as usual from Land and Water, an account of 

 some of the big fish in " my museum." It would be a 

 tedious process to anatomise the contents of this " Natural 

 History of British Fishes"; taking all that is written at 

 its true value, we set down the work as an interesting 

 collection of miscellanea. The account given of the 

 Loch Leven trout (Salmo Levenenses) fs exceedingly 

 meagre, as is likewise the descriptions of several 

 other fresh-water fishes, notably the vendace of Loch 

 Maben. The most suggestive part of the present work 

 is that which is devoted to "Pisciculture" (pp. 334 

 to 375). Under the title of "The Cultivation of Fish 

 Ponds," much interesting matter is given, and a good deal 

 of information that must be new to the uninitiated is set 

 forth. But notwithstanding the many pleas for piscicul- 

 ture which have at various times been advanced, it is 

 questionable if the cultivation of other fresh-water fish 

 than the salmon would pay as a food resource. A larger 

 supply of trout would no doubt be welcome to the angler, 

 because the trout is the fish of the angler par excellence ; 

 moreover in many places angling has now to be paid for, 

 and lairds in Scotland who let their moors and lochs can 

 always lease them to greater advantage when they are 

 well stocked. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 Proceedings of the Aberdeenshire Agricultural Associa- 

 tion. (Fourth Annual Report, 1879-80.) 

 We have here an account of the field and laboratory 

 experiments carried out by Mr. Jamieson for the Aber- 

 deenshire Association during the year 1879. The crops 

 experimented on were turnips and oats. As before, 

 the principal object in view was to ascertain the com- 

 parative manuring value of various phosphates in 

 different states of aggregation. We can glance at 

 only a few points in the results. 



Mr. Jamieson claims to have shown that a finely 

 powdered mineral phosphate, as, for instance, powdered 

 coprolite, is nearly equal as a manure for turnips to the 

 same amount of phosphate applied in a soluble form as a 

 superphosphate, while the simply powdered phosphate 

 is of course much cheaper than the manufactured manure. 

 There is probably no doubt that on some soils a finely 

 powdered mineral phosphate is sufficiently soluble to 

 produce a considerable effect on the crop, if only the 

 phosphate is applied in sufficient quantity, so as to 

 present a considerable surface for attack ; and to Mr. 

 Jamieson belongs the credit of giving prominence to this 

 fact, though it was by no means unknown before his 

 experiments. There is however no reason for supposing 

 that dissolved and undissolved phosphates have the same 

 manurial value. When large doses of each are applied 

 the manures may appear of equal value, because while 

 the undissolved phosphate is sufficient for the wants of 

 the crop, the dissolved phosphate is in excess of all 

 requirements, and is therefore wastefully employed. Mr. 

 Jamieson applies 100 lbs. ^ of phosphoric acid per acre 

 both as dissolved and undissolved phosphate; that is to 

 say, about 3 cwts. of bone ash and 5 cwts. of bone-ash 

 superphosphate. Such a comparison is probably quite 

 unfair to the soluble phosphate. For the small turnip 

 crops obtained in Mr. Jamieson's experiments aj cwts. of 



' On page 15 of the appendix the amount of phosphoric acid apph"ed per 

 acre is stated to be 100 lbs., but on page 16 the quantity is given as 300 lbs. 



