178 . THE ZOOLOGIST. 



so near as to plainly hear (so marvellously are sounds carried 

 over the water) the resounding blows and the feeble and ever 

 feebler snorting of the succumbing Whale, which would have 

 doubtless sounded out of harm's way but for the forbidding 

 blade of some watchful Saw-fish which had made common cause 

 with the assassins. How long the unequal combat had lasted 

 before our arrival I am unable to say ; but the end soon came, a 

 commotion around the now motionless leviathan plainly indi- 

 cating that the victors, assisted, perchance, by other Sharks, were 

 already sampling the blubber." 



There are many illustrations, and those of Australian fishes 

 are particularly useful. 



The Fishes of North and Middle America : a Descriptive Cata- 

 logue of the Species of Fish-like Vertebrates found in the 

 Waters of North America, North of the Isthmus of Panama. 

 By D. S. Jordan, Ph.D., and B. W. Evermann, Ph.D. 

 Washington : Government Printing Office. 1896. 



This massive volume of 1240 pages is but Part I. of a 

 colossal undertaking, and we are promised an atlas, containing 

 anatomical figures and illustrations of many of the more im- 

 portant species on the completion of the second volume. In this 

 instalment no less than 522 genera and 1627 species are de- 

 scribed, and the publication forms No. 47 of the ■ Bulletin 

 of the United States National Museum.' 



From the geographical limits of the fauna studied, it will be 

 evident that the work will somewhat anticipate the description 

 and enumeration of Pisces in the ' Biologia Centrali Americana ' 

 of Godman and Salvin, though of course it covers a far wider 

 area, and apart from its special value to ichthyologists is a 

 welcome addition to the zoological library, affording a handy 

 and trustworthy book of reference as to the distribution of 

 nearctic and of many neotropical fishes. 



The text is naturally of a more or less technical description, 

 though there are some passages which have the charm of narra- 

 tive. Thus, in dealing with the family Percidre, of which the 

 great majority of the species treated belong to the subfamily 



