Marcy 15, 1912] 
is it mentioned in the supplements that have 
since been published. Cope says: 
This species ranges the Austroriparian region 
east of the Mississippi River, and the Carolinian 
district of the Eastern, not, however, entering New 
Jersey. 
It appears, however, from the above record 
that there is at least one colony of corn snakes 
to be found in the pine barrens of New Jersey. 
NEw BRIGHTON, Wma. T. Davis 
STATEN ISLAND, N. Y. 
FUNDULUS AND FRESH WATER 
THE notes which have recently appeared in 
ScIENCE in regard to the capacity of salt- 
water minnows to survive being transferred 
to fresh water, remind me that the experiment 
has been, and I suppose still is tried, on what 
I may eall a commercial scale, in south- 
eastern Massachusetts. “ Mummichugs ” 
(Fundulus spp.) are the favorite, practically 
the only, bait for winter pickerel fishing 
through the ice, and it was a very common 
practise to catch them in large quantities in 
salt water in the late fall, and keep them in 
running fresh water all winter. 
When I lived on a farm in Middleboro, 
Mass., in 1892-96, one of my neighbors always 
had them for sale, during the pickerel season. 
He used to catch them in Buzzard’s Bay, 
some fifteen miles away, and kept them in a 
perforated box, placed in a running brook. I 
have more than once bought “ Mummichugs ” 
from him, and, if my memory does not play 
me false, have kept them alive for some time 
in a boxed-in spring on my farm. They must 
have been in confinement at least a month, 
but seemed in perfect health and were very 
vigorous and active. Had there been any 
serious mortality among them, it certainly 
would not have paid him to keep them for 
sale. 
As a matter of fact, I believe that live 
Fundulus for bait are to be had regularly in 
the Boston fish markets every winter, and my 
impression is that they are kept in tanks fed 
with ordinary tap water. 
I may add that I use a good many “ Mum- 
SCIENCE 
417 
michugs ” for live bait every summer, and 
find them remarkably tenacious of life. If 
covered with wet seaweed, they keep lively for 
several hours even in hot weather. 
JoHN Murpocu 
PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
Boston, Mass. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
By  Aveust 
1911. Pp. 721; 
Vergleichende Physiologie. 
Purrer. Jena, G. Fischer. 
illustrations 174. 
The title of this book, “ Comparative Phys- 
iology,” is misleading and the author, who is 
a professor at Bonn, endeavors to justify it in 
his introduction. The task of general physiol- 
ogy, he says, is the investigation of the general 
problems of life; comparative physiology is a 
method, the object of which is to enable one 
to comprehend the fundamental physiological 
similarities of organisms. The book there- 
fore does not rehearse the physiological dif- 
ferences of species or larger groups, but deals 
with general physiology. “ Allgemeine Phys- 
iologie” would have been a better title, had 
it not conflicted with that of his master Ver- 
worn’s book. The facts are drawn chiefly 
from invertebrate animals and plants, a help- 
ful list of which, with both scientific and 
common names, family, order and class, is 
given at the end. There are ten chapters, 
most of them long, rambling, and clumsily 
subdivided. In one ease, the same heading is 
used for two distinct and separate sections. 
The index is wretchedly incomplete. Not- 
withstanding these technical defects, the book 
is a valuable addition to the growing litera- 
ture of general physiology. It is very modern: 
most of its references to literature belong to 
the last decade; but again the great bulk of 
American physiology is unnoticed. 
The morphological substratum of vital proc- 
esses is passed over very briefly, only a few 
facts being presented regarding colloids, ad- 
sorption compounds, membranes, alveolar 
structure, and the chemical constituents of 
living substance. The term “living sub- 
stanee” is an abstraction; several kinds of 
