12, Fish Recent and Fossil. 
A Review oF Some Recent AMERICAN WoRK. 
A ed aphy sf Fishes. By Bashford Dean and others. crane sa gry 
ol. I, pp. 1-718, by Dean and Eastman, eek Vol. ig ee 
Sv Dean an id ‘Rantrone., 1917; Vol. III, pp 1-707, by PG 
and Henn: New Yo rk) pcientnig by the bears Mienia ae 
Natural History in the ‘* Sci ducation Ser 
The Auete a Fishes. By oat ‘Bier Jordan. Pot parts (pt. I, 
Pp. by Jordan and Evermann, 1917; “ey II, pp. 163-284, 
1919 ; Are TIL, pp. 285-410, 1919; pt. IV, pp. 415-576; 1920 by 
Jordan: Califo aegis published by arceat Stanford Junior Uni- 
versity, California i ‘Univ — 
A Classification of Fishes. roo sed Famili ‘och en nera as far as kno 
By David Starr Jordan. anford Universi ty Prblicatiane. we Uni. 
versity Series,’ Biological SFttioen, IIT, No. 2, pp. 79-243 (1923). 
Zoologists at the present day are almost in the position of 
the blind workers engaged in building a termite mound. Each 
constructs his little ‘pellet of information and places it some- 
where, without exactly knowing its relation to other pellets 
but with a subconscious feeling that he is doing the right 
thing, and possibly even with a vague instinct that his work 
is helping on some great sstatests . The wealth of material 
is boundless, the number of w akews almost innumerable. and 
no one worker knows what his neighbour is doing. To raise 
us from this somewhat hopeless intellectual limbo we need 
physicians and teachers who will open our eyes and instruct 
us what to see. For the training of the physician and — 
patience is necessary. He must study not only Nature as she 
exists but Nature as she appears through the pees toate 
of the eyes of Searabee. To drop all metaphor, we need men 
(or women) who are W illing and able to abstract aa codify 
existing informat 
this pot ‘ichthyologists are now perhaps happier 
than the students of any other group of animals, thanks to the 
devoted labours of two little bands of enthusiastic students of 
the fishes, both American but working on different sides of the 
continent. In New York we have Professor Bashford David 
assist eget in his almost quali ussfal work. 
object of this review is to abstract abstracts 
importance. All contain, as is inevitable, errors of detail, 
but their breadth of outlook is beyond cavil and their general 
accuracy of a very high order. 
