November 18, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



709 



kept in the water where the Peridinium were 

 the thickest, and suffered no apparent injury. 

 In consideration of these facts, it has been 

 doubted whether the Peridinium was the imme- 

 diate cause of the peculiar behavior and death 

 of the fish which occurred on the 9th and 10th 

 of September, especially as the weather had 

 been phenomenally hot for several weeks pre- 

 vious to that date. I believe, however, that the 

 Peridinium was the cause of the trouble, and 

 not the hot weather nor manufacturers' wastei 

 for the following reasons : 



On the two or three days in which the mor- 

 tality took place the water was extremely red. 



The hot weather was followed by a cold wave 

 a day or two before the mortality commenced. 



The phenomena occurred in Greenwich Bay 

 and off Nayatt, many miles from any consider- 

 able source of contamination. 



Finally, the phenomena in question were no- 

 ticed by very many persons throughout the 

 whole range of the red water, while in neighbor- 

 ing portions of the Bay, for example, in the 

 Warren Eiver and in Bristol Harbor, where the 

 temperature of the water is quite as high as in 

 the red-water districts, no Peridinium and no 

 mortality or unusual behavior of the marine 

 animals was reported, though the regions were 

 carefully canvassed. 



There are many recorded instances of salt 

 and of fresh water colored red probably by 

 Peridinium of this or a similar species. H. J. 

 Carter, in his account of ' The Red Coloring 

 Matter of the Sea round the Shores of the 

 Island of Bombay,' described the new species 

 P. sanguineum, which produces this effect. He 

 points out, also, that Darwin's description of 

 the animalcule which he found to color the sea 

 red, a degree south of Valparaiso, accords ex- 

 actly with that of Peridinium. The animalcules 

 which, according to Salt, produce the red color 

 in the Red Sea, may also be due to this form, 

 and the same cause may perhaps be ascribed to 

 the red color of the sea off Iceland in 1649. 

 Porter quotes " the following passage from an 

 eye witness of a similar occurrence at Pore- 

 bunder, on the coast of Khattywar, India, 

 where the red water is extremely common, viz.; 

 ' the color of the sea water on Saturday even- 

 ing last, the 27th of October, 1849, was changed 



from its usual tint to a deep red, emitting a most 

 foul smell ; the fish speedily were all destroyed 

 and washed upon the beach in large quantities, 

 etc' " Though the narrator believed that this 

 might be due to a submarine eruption of mud, 

 Mr. Carter is inclined to ascribe it to some 

 'animalcule, ' most probably Peridinium. He also 

 directs attention to the Mosaic account of the 

 plague of Egypt given in the following verses : 

 " And all the waters that were in the river were 

 turned to blood." " And the fish that tvas in 

 the river died ; and the river stank, and the 

 Egyptians could not drink of the water of the 

 river; and there was blood throughout all the 

 land of Egypt." 



A. D. Mead. 



ZOOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



To THE Editor of Science : The report on 

 Zoological Bibliography, summarized in your 

 issue of November 4th, is evidently conceived 

 primarily from the point of view of the bibli- 

 ographer, but from that of the working zoologist 

 it is open to criticism in several details. Chief 

 among these is rule 3, in which the standpoint 

 is made especially conspicuous from the un- 

 warranted assumption that the publication of 

 the separate papers of a volume before the vol- 

 ume as a whole is issued is 'improper,' while 

 the indefinite delay of their publication is 

 ' proper. ' It seems to the writer that the pro- 

 priety or impropriety really consists in the in- 

 deflniteness of date, which may or may not ac- 

 company the separate publication. This may 

 be, and should be, avoided in a much more 

 simple and easy manner than the remedy pro- 

 posed by the committee. It is only necessary 

 that the separates as issued should each bear its 

 own date and that the table of contents issued 

 with the volume should state under each title 

 'author's copies issued' at such and such a 

 date. For the progress of science, as well as 

 the convenience of workers, it is much more 

 important that separate papers should be 

 promptly issued and distributed to specialists 

 than that the volume should be issued at all. 

 The above method has been employed by the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and 

 the method of separate publication of all papers 

 has been adopted by most of the Washington 



