178 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 996 



geometric infinitesimals). Third order ques- 

 tions have heen treated in a haphazard way in 

 the standard literature. Even in the simple 

 ease of plane curves, the average student be- 

 comes familiar only with the interpretation 

 of the first derivative as slope (tangent line), 

 and of the second derivative as curvature 

 (osculating curve). As regards the third de- 

 rivative, his mind is usually blank. Even the 

 elementary books should contain the defini- 

 tion of deviation, introduced hy Transon over 

 seventy years ago. 



An excellent index and table of symbols 

 will be appreciated by the student, and make 

 the volume serviceable for convenient refer- 

 ence. The press work throughout is quite per- 

 fect. Edward Kasner 



Columbia LTniat:rsitt 



A Catalogue of the Fishes of Japan. By 

 David Starr Jordan, Shigeho Tanaka and 

 John Otterbein Snyder. Journal of the 

 College of Science, Tokyo Imperial Univer- 

 sity, Vol. XXXIII., article 1. Tokyo, 1913. 

 8vo. Pp. l-i97, with 396 text-figures. 

 Japan possesses a wonderfully rich fish 

 fauna. This is due to several causes : first, to 

 the fact that she consists of a chain of islands 

 with innumerable small, sheltered bodies of 

 water which afford great variety of depth, 

 physical condition of sea floor, etc., — ^factors 

 highly favorably to a diversity of fish life. 

 Secondly, to her remarkable north-and-south 

 extent, which gives her in addition to the regu- 

 lar north temperate fauna, in itself unusually 

 rich in this instance, a subtropical fauna allied 

 to that of the Philippine Islands, in the south, 

 and a fauna merging into a subarctic one, in the 

 extreme north. Thirdly, her eastern coast is 

 touched by the Euroshiwo, or warm black cur- 

 rent, which harbors many tropical forms, some 

 of them exceedingly rare, or in fact, only 

 known from this current. 



With such remarkable conditions, it is not 

 surprising that ichthyologists should have been 

 attracted to the study of Japanese fishes. 

 Many of the writers of this and the preceding 

 generation have taken a hand in describing 

 portions of this fauna as materials were 



brought from Japan, so that an extensive 

 literature has grown up about it. And there 

 has been at least one extensive work on this 

 fauna — that of Temminck and Schlegel, in two 

 superb folio volumes, one of text and one of 

 plates, published between 1842 and 1850. 



But an entirely new chapter in Japanese 

 ichthyology was opened when, in 1900, Chan- 

 cellor Jordan and Professor Snyder, of Leland 

 Stanford University, visited Japan for the 

 purpose of studying the fishes. As a result of 

 the collections then made, and of others made 

 subsequently, including one by Gilbert and 

 Snyder in the Albatross, in 1906, Jordan and 

 his associates Gilbert, Snyder, Starks, Eichard- 

 son. Fowler, Herre, Scale and Thompson, 

 have worked unremittingly on this fauna, pub- 

 lishing paper after paper, until a long series, 

 numbering several score, has now appeared. 

 They have described hundreds of new species; 

 figured, revised, re-studied, and thrown light 

 on many of the darker problems relating to 

 the fishes of Japan. 



Early in the course of these studies it be- 

 came patent to Jordan and Snyder that it 

 was necessary to take stock of what had already 

 been done on the Japanese fauna. Accord- 

 ingly, in 1901, they published " A preliminary 

 check-list of the fishes of Japan." This incor- 

 porated all the data then available, including 

 two lists published by Japanese ichthyologists. 

 The number of species listed was 686, many, 

 however, only doubtfully referred to Japan. 

 And now we have a new catalogue of the fishes 

 of Japan from the pen of Jordan, Tanaka and 

 Snyder. An idea of the enormous wealth of 

 the Japanese fish fauna, as well as of the great 

 stride that has been made in its study in a 

 little over a decade, is shown in the fact that 

 the present catalogue lists no less than 1.236 

 species (including the 6 given in the Addi- 

 tions and Corrections, pp. 429^30), or nearly 

 twice the number known in 1901. 



The catalogue — or check-list, as it might 

 more correctly have been termed — enumerates 

 the families, genera and species of the fishes 

 occurring in the waters of Japan. Under each 

 species is given a reference to the first de- 

 scriber, and generally, to a reviser; together 



