io8 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Recent elections to the Fellowship of the Zoological Society have included the 

 name of Mr. Riley Fortune, of Harrogate. 



The natural history publications of Mr. S. L. Mosley, F.E.S., whose writings 

 are so well known, and whose work in Economic Entomology is so full of practical 

 utility, have lately included the announcement of the commencement of a new 

 work on British Butterflies, to be completed in twelve parts, and to include 

 coloured figures of every species, engraved by the author and hand-coloured by 

 his daughter. This will be actually commenced as soon as a hundred subscribers 

 have given in their names, at a subscription price often shillings for the whole work. 



Many years ago. Professor Ray Lankester, when reviewing Professor MTntosh's 

 great treatise upon the Nemerteans, which appeared in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, declared that the Society, by publishing such splendid 

 researches, did more honour to itself than any it could confer upon the author. 

 Once more the premier Society of the North has published a memoir ('On the 

 Development and Life Histories of the Teleostean Food- and other Fishes,' by 

 Professor W. C. MTntosh, F.R.S., and Edwd. E. Prince, B.A., St. Andrews 

 Marine Laboratory; Trans. Royal Soc. Edinb., vol. xxxv, part ii. No. 19) as 

 voluminous and perhaps as exquisitely illustrated as its predecessor on the 

 Nemerteans ; but treating of the development of British Teleosteans, especially 

 Food-Fishes. The work is one which will take a high rank in its department, and 

 the fact that Mr. Prince, conjoint author with Professor M'Intosh, is a Yorkshire- 

 man, and was at one time an active naturalist in the West Riding, will lend 

 additional interest to the treatise in the eyes of many readers of this journal. 

 After perusing a copy of the memoir, received from one of the authors, we cannot 

 but be of opinion that it is one which may be placed side by side with preceding 

 works from the pen of the distinguished Professor of Natural History at St. 

 Andrews. And that is high praise. Cunningham, Brook, and other English 

 investigators, have issued brief papers on the embryology of Marine Osseous 

 Pishes ; but this is the first comprehensive study of an important subject which 

 has been too long neglected. The present paper extends over 281 pp., and 

 the plates number twenty-eight, all the figures on which, with the exception 

 of one or two small sketches, are from the pencils of the two authors. Those 

 acquainted with the elaborate papers of His, Hoffman, Lereboullet, Bambeke, 

 List, and other foreign authors, will find that an English treatise upon the 

 propagation, embryonic development, and larval life of British Teleosteans has 

 now appeared not inferior in excellence and completeness to the splendid con- 

 tinental publications. Though consisting of thirteen sections, the memoir 

 practically may be divided into three parts : — (i) a laborious account, very detailed, 

 and largely microscopical, of the structure of the Teleostean ovum, the process of 

 fertilisation, and the early stages of larval development ; (2) a lengthy description 

 of the advanced and post-larval stages, and (3) a concluding part in which 

 the development of the Salmon is compared with that of a marine Teleostean, 

 the Wolf-fish (Anarrhichas). The Wolf-fish was reared in the St. Andrews 

 Marine Laboratory, from the egg, until the end of the sixth month, at the 

 conclusion of which period the young fish exhibits all the features of the adult. 

 This is really the first time, we believe, that a marine Osseous Fish (and 

 Anarr/iic/ias is an admirable food-fish, though little known as such) has been 

 artificially reared through all its larval and post-larval life. Every page of the 

 memoir embodies observations of deep scientific interest, and many intricate 

 questions such as the nature of the periblast and its nuclei, the formation of the 

 medullary canal in the neurochord, the existence of the neurenteric canal, and 

 similar embryological points are fully detailed and illustrated by serial sections, 

 and by drawings from life under high powers. Future workers upon the life- 

 history of British Food-fishes, will look to this work as affording a basis for their 

 researches, and it is certainly a splendid contribution to a department of know- 

 ledge which is now being recognised as of paramount importance, no less from its 

 practical, than from its scientific bearings. 



Naturalist, 



