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NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
WAR NAMES. 
“Why Mr. Oldfield Thomas should have applied the names 
of Joffre, Kitchener, and Sturdee to certain bats is,’ writes 
a zoological correspondent, ‘as incomprehensible to me as it 
appears to be to you. But I fancy that yet another new 
species—Pipistrellus principulus—must have been so named 
in honour of the German Crown Prince, for its chief character- 
istic is a “‘ skull with a quite unusually swollen brain case.” ’ 
THE AGE OF OYSTERS. 
On this subject Professor J. Arthur Thomson writes in 
Knowledge for June. He says: ‘It is supposed by many 
that the age of an oyster can be ascertained by counting the 
rings, or groups of rings, on its deep valve, each group being 
regarded as a year’s growth. Miss Anne L. Massy has tested 
this in reference to specimens from the oyster station at Ardfry, 
at the head of Galway Bay ; but she does not recommend the 
method. “‘ All I can honestly say I have learnt from a patient 
scrutiny of over six hundred samples of various ages, from 
eighteen months to six years, is that an oyster of eighteen 
months or two summers appears to possess at least two rings, 
but may have as many as five. One of three summers has at 
least two rings, and may have six. A four-year-old oyster 
may have only three rings, or may possess seven or eight.” ’ 
WINKLES AND FISH v. LAW. 
We learn from the Yorkshire Observer that the High Court 
of Justice has decided unanimously that a winkle is a fish. 
The case was an appeal against a conviction under the Larcency 
Act of 1891, which Act imposes a penalty on any person who 
takes or destroys any fish in any water which is controlled by 
private fishery rights. The appellant had been found picking 
up winkles on mud-flats in a tidal river, and the point submitted 
to the Court was whether winkles were fish or not. The Lord 
Chief Justice confessed that he would have been puzzled how 
to decide had he not found guidance in a former judgment 
to the effect that crayfish were fish, and he quoted this inter- 
esting declaration of Mr. Justice Mathew : ‘It is perhaps, 
difficult to give any definite reason except that crayfish are 
fish.’ This, said the Lord Chief Justice, ‘ was a decision which 
they must follow.’ Mr. Justice Avory agreed, adding that 
but for the precedent he would have decided otherwise, and 
Mr. Justice Low superciliously declared that he ‘ saw no reason 
why e winkle should not bea fish.’ To the lay mind it does not 
seem’ a necessary conclusion that a winkle must be a fish 
because a crayfish has been held to be one, but legal logic 
follows rules of its own. ‘ The Standard Dictionary ’ defines 
a fish as (1) a vertebrate animal with gills, and (2) an animal 
1915 July 2. O 
