380 



SCIENCE 



vs. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 820 



and stocking of the aquarium, and also on the 

 feeding and care of its inmates. These por- 

 tions of the book appear altogether too brief, 

 however, and it would seem that Mr. Eg- 

 geling, with his long experience in these mat- 

 ters, might have given us more of the benefit 

 of it. He has chosen instead to devote three 

 fourths of the book (or to be exact, 280 of the 

 352 pages) to descriptions and figures of 

 aquarium plants and animals. 



The figures are generally excellent with only 

 a few of the old stereotyped sort and nearly all 

 of them are from good photographs. The 

 descriptions apparently suffer from too great 

 an attempt to popularize — at any rate they 

 are loosely written and often fail to give 

 enough diagnostic characters to distinguish 

 a species from its relatives. The few sun- 

 fishes mentioned, for example, could hardly be 

 identified among the many others which are 

 found in our streams and ponds and which 

 thrive equally well in aquaria. Such descrip- 

 tions can have no particular use except to ac- 

 quaint the reader with the general characters 

 of the group rather than the individual kind. 



The authors would have done well to sub- 

 mit their scientific names to the scrutiny of a 

 specialist before publishing them, and thus 

 have avoided the use of antiquated nomen- 

 clature. This is especially true of the fishes, 

 where a cursory examination reveals nearly a 

 score of scientific names no longer regarded 

 as correct. A number of cases of mis-spelling 

 occur among these names also — e. g., Cotos- 

 iomus for Catostomiis, Rhinichtys for Rhin- 

 ichthys, Amiurus for AmeiuruS; Etheostoma 

 ccerulea for E. cwruleum, Pomotis elongatis 

 for P. elongatus. The parasitic fungus Sapro- 

 legnia also appears as Saprolegnies, and the 

 word " milt " as milk ! 



The invertebrates are very inadequately 

 treated, only aquatic insects and snails re- 

 ceiving mention. The dragonflies are omitted 

 entirely from the former, though they are 

 among the most interesting of aquatic larva 

 and are easily kept and reared. Neither is 

 any mention made of the crayfishes or other 

 fresh-water Crustacea — an unfortunate omis- 



To make amends for some of these defi- 

 ciencies there is a considerable amount of 

 interesting natural history matter on the 

 habits of the various forms in the aquarium. 



The publishers have seen fit to make the 

 volume about twice as large and heavy as 

 necessary by the use of thick glazed paper 

 and wide margins. But in spite of its many 

 faults the book will no doubt be of real service 

 to many amateurs in this alluring field of 

 study, and will be useful in creating interest 

 in the home aquarium and its inhabitants. 



E. C. O. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 



The Journal of Experimental Zoology for 

 July contains the following articles : E. New- 

 ton Harvey, " The Mechanism of Membrane 

 Formation and other Early Changes in De- 

 veloping Sea-urchins' Eggs as bearing on the 

 Problem of Artificial Parthenogenesis," with 

 two figures ; William M. Wheeler, " The 

 Effects of Parasitic and other kinds of Cas- 

 tration in Insects," with eight figures; A. M. 

 Banta, " A Comparison of the Reactions of a 

 .Species of Surface Isopod with those of a 

 Subterranean Species," Part II.; A. H. Esta- 

 brook, " Effect of Chemicals on Growth in 

 Paramecium," with one figure; G. H. Parker, 

 " Olfactory Reactions in Eishes." 



OPINIONS RENDERED BY TEE INTERNA- 

 TIONAL COMMISSION ON ZOOLOGICAL 

 NOMENCLATURE ' 



This comprises a history of the commission ; 

 method to be followed in submitting cases for 

 opinion; list of cooperating committees on 

 nomenclature; personnel of the commission; 

 references to places of publication of the In- 

 ternational Code; opinions 1-25. The first 

 five are republished from Science." Twenty 

 of the opinions are here published for the 

 first time. As the brochure will have a 

 rather restricted distribution, a resume of 

 these opinions is here presented. The intro- 



'■ Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Publica- 

 tion No. 1938, July, 1910, 8vo, pp. 61. 



= Vol. XXVI., October 18, 1907, pp. 522, 523. 



