December 4, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



815 



THE REPLY OF FANTHAM AND PORTER 



It is regrettable certainly that books sub- 

 mitted for review do not always meet with 

 unqualified commendation. Any such book is 

 an objective thing to be treated critically and 

 impartially by the unprejudiced reviewer and 

 the impression made by the book upon the 

 reviewer should be honestly set forth by him. 

 This was the case in the present instance and 

 the concluding remark which the authors feel 

 it best to ignore, was the honest impression 

 made by the book upon the reviewer. As it 

 was an impression made on a reader unac- 

 quainted with the authors but familiar with 

 the subjects discussed, the fault must lie in 

 the book. 



As for the so-called inaccuracies in the re- 

 view I will not take the space here to go over 

 the matters which led to the criticisms but 

 will point out some misleading statements in 

 the authors' letter. For example the rather 

 imposing list of names in connection with 

 spirochsetes does not include such careful ob- 

 servers as Novy, Gross or Dobell, whose views 

 regarding so-called longitudinal division are 

 quite different from those of the authors. 

 These are probably included in the " opinions 

 of other investigators also," an example of 

 which, in connection with spirochaetes, may 

 be cited from page Yl : 



Again, some persons have denied the existence 

 of longitudinal division teeause they themselves 

 have not observed it. Needless to say, their mis- 

 fortune does not invalidate the fact of undoubted 

 longitudinal division. 



Equally misleading is the reference (2) to 

 Treponema, pallidum, the spirochsete of syph- 

 ilis. It is true that the Index on page 318 

 refers to all that is given on the subject, and 

 we quote it in full : 



The parasite of syphilis was first regarded as a 

 spirochsete, but later was renamed Treponema 

 pallidum, because the coils of the body were said 

 to be fixed. Balfour recently has shown, that 

 Treponema is a "granule shedder," i. e., it pro- 

 duces ovoid bodies just as spirochEetes do. In this 

 case it seems very probable that it is only the 

 mittuteness of the organism that prevents full 

 knowledge of its iaternal structure, and that for 

 the same reason its coils appear fixed. There are 



undoubted affinities between all of the organisms 

 mentioned, and it seems far better to keep the 

 older nomenclature and not to attempt re-classifi- 

 cation until the life-history of each form has been 

 fully elucidated. Building on an insecure founda- 

 tion has the disadvantage of causing endless patch- 

 ing and emendation later, and the old saying, 

 "More haste, less speed," is as applicable in 

 protozoology as elsewhere (p. 86). 



This certainly justifies the criticism in the 

 original review, for even the authors would 

 hesitate to claim that this is a description of 

 the organism of syphilis. 



Gary N. Calkins 



a filefish new to the atlantic coast of the 

 united states 



Woods Hole continues to yield most un- 

 expected ichthyological treasures. The latest 

 addition to the fish fauna of the region is a 

 filefish taken in floating rockweed in Vineyard 

 Sound on September 3, 1914, by Mr. Vinal N. 

 Edwards, the indefatigable collector at the 

 fishery station. The species is Oantherines 

 pullus, described in 1842 from Brazil and sub- 

 sequently taken in Cuba, Porto Eico and Tor- 

 tugas, but heretofore unknown from the east 

 coast of the United States. The genus 

 Pseudomonacanthus Bleeker, 1866, appears to 

 be identical with Oantherines Swainson, 1839; 

 and Pseudomonacanthus amphioxys (Cope), 

 known only from two young specimens from 

 St. Martin Island, West Indies, is a synonym 

 of Oantherines pullus (Ranzaui). 



My associate Mr. Lewis Eadcliffe advises 

 that a comparison of the Woods Hole speci- 

 men and another of the same species from 

 Porto Rico with a specimen of the type spe- 

 cies of this genus, Oantherines sandwichiensis 

 (Quoy and Gaimard), from Honolulu discloses 

 no valid differences. As the latter is recorded 

 from Socorro Island, off the west coast of 

 Mexico, and the young are pelagic, it seems 

 not improbable that a further comparison of 

 a series of specimens from widely separated 

 localities will prove pullus to be a synonym of 

 sandwichiensis. 



H. M. Smith 



Btjeeau of Fisheries, 

 Washington, D. C. 



