September 9, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



331 



(Brown's 'American Angler's Guide' and 

 Herbert's 'Frank Forrester's Fish and 

 Fishing of the United States') which 

 served as guides to the fishermen of that 

 time; even so able an ichthyologist as Sir 

 John Richardson quoted it and was evi- 

 dently much puzzled by it. 



V. 



The next author whose work demands 

 examination was a man of quite a diiferent 

 character from Smith, and who, for nearly 

 three decades, published the results of stud- 

 ies of the fishes of Massachusetts. His 

 last work is still the most comprehensive 

 illustrated volume descriptive of the fishes 

 of Massachusetts alone. 



David Humphreys Storer was born in 

 Portland, Maine, March 26, 1804, attended 

 Bowdoin College and was graduated there 

 in 1822, then studied medicine, and was 

 graduated from the medical department of 

 Harvard College in 1825. Immediately 

 afterwards he established himself in Boston 

 as a general practitioner of medicine. ' ' In 

 1837 he cooperated in founding the Tre- 

 mont Street Medical School. He became in- 

 terested in natural history in 1831 and was 

 one of the founders of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History," and in 1838 was 

 elected curator of the herpetological and 

 ichthyological collections. lip was also 

 'commissioned' in 1837 as one of the com- 

 missioners to report on the zoology and 

 botany of Massachusetts under an act of 

 the. legislature 'approved 12th April, 1837.' 



In 1854 he was called to the professor- 

 ship of obstetrics and medical jurispru- 

 dence in the medical school of Harvard; 

 in 1859 became also the dean, and held both 

 appointments till 1868. Meanwhile, from 

 1849 till 1858, he was; physician to the 

 Massachusetts General Hospita,l. In 1866 

 he served as president of the American 

 Medical Association. He was honored by 

 Bowdoin College in 1876 with the degree 



of LL.D. In 1883 he retired almost en- 

 tirely from practise and spent the remain- 

 ing years of his life in the enjoyment of 

 weU-merited leisure. 



His principal works relative to the region 

 under consideration are 'A Report on the 

 Fishes of Massachusetts,' published in the 

 Boston Journal of Natural History, in 

 1839, and 'A History of the Fishes of 

 Massachusetts,' published in the Memoirs 

 of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, from 1853 to 1867.* These were 



* Storer ( David Humphreys ) . 'A Report on the 

 Fishes of Massachusetts.' By D. Humphreys 

 Storer, M.D. <:^ Boston Journal of Natural His- 

 tory, Vol. II., 1839, pp. 289-558, pi. VI.-VIII. 

 Descriptions are given of 107 nominal species, 

 91 of which are salt- or brackish-water, and 16 

 fresh-water; in the concluding remarks, 9 addi- 

 tional undeterminate species are indicated as 

 probable inhabitants of the Massachusetts waters. 



' Supplement to the Ichthyological Report.' 



< 76., Vol. III., 1841, pp. 267-273. 



' Additional Descriptions of, and Observa- 

 tions on, the Fishes of Massachusetts.' 1842. 



< lb., IV., 1844, pp. 175-190. 



A second svipplement to the report. 



' Reports on the Ichthyology and Herpetology 



of Massachusetts.' By D. Humphreys Storer, 

 M.D. <^ Reports on the fishes, reptiles and 

 birds of Massachusetts. Published agreeably 

 to an order of the legislature, by the commis- 

 sioners on the zoological and botanical survey of 

 the state. Boston: Dutton & Wentworth State 

 Printers, 1839. [8vo, xii [ -|- 2 1.], 426 pp., 4 

 pi.], pp. 1-253, with half-title,— Fishes of 

 Massachusetts, — pp. 1-202, pi. 1-3. 



The report on the fishes is the same as that 

 published in the Boston Journal of Natural His- 

 tory, but (1) an entirely different introduction is 

 added, (2) the supplementary observations on 

 ' Carcharias obscurus' (B. J., III., 558) are 

 omitted and (3) supplementary observations are 

 added (pp. 405-409) on several species. 



The plates are apparently printed from the 

 same lithographic stones. 



' A Synopsis of the Fishes of North America.' 



<^ Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences. New series. Vol. II. (Cam- 

 bridge, 1846) , pp. 253-550. I, 

 739 nominal species from all North America 



(including the West Indies) are describe^. The 



