NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 41 



the potentialities of zoological discovery of the most absorbing 

 interest, liable almost to provoke romantic speculation. As 

 the once discredited Herodotus has now been rehabilitated by 

 recent African discovery, so some of the wild traditions of ocean 

 life may come to have an explanation ; myths to have some kind 

 of realities, and fables prove to have been at least based on facts. 

 We have, however, some negative data to qualify supposition. 

 " The recent investigations of Mr. Agassiz in the Pacific, with 

 the Tanner net, seem to show pretty conclusively that there are 

 but few living forms below a.depth of 1800 or 2000 feet." On those 

 found still deeper the abyssal environment has produced much 

 modification. Thus of Lionurus filicauda, Giinther, reported as 

 from great depth, its describer refers to the small eye, the soft 

 bones, the lack of firmness in the scales, and the filamentous tail 

 as indicating its abyssal abode. 



As one turns over these more than 500 quarto pages devoted 

 to generic and specific descriptions, with the careful details of local 

 habitats, and when the reader may have done something of this 

 monographic and faunistic work himself, he cannot help feeling 

 that apart from all else, the patient labour of zoologists is an 

 established fact. Such authors have few readers, appeal alone 

 to their peers, and did they accept the axiom of Goethe, that he 

 "who does not expect a million of readers should not write a 

 line," works like those under notice would never be produced. 



The accompanying Atlas contains 417 figures. 



Coloured Figures of the Eggs of British Birds, with Descriptive 

 Notices. By Henry Seebohm. Edited by Dr. E. Bowdler 

 Sharpe. Sheffield : Pawson & Brailsford. 1896. 



This beautiful publication may be taken as the last contribu- 

 tion of the late Henry Seebohm to British Ornithology. Other 

 material may yet be printed, but it will not probably wholly 

 pertain to " our rough island story." It is a fitting sequel to the 

 same author's ' History. of British Birds,' and though Seebohm 

 did not live to see it published, there can be no doubt that his 

 wish would have been gratified in having it edited by his friend 

 Bowdler Sharpe. The system of classification is as proposed by 



