894 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



opposite extreme presents us with Cunningham's ' Marketable 

 Fishes ' and Mcintosh and Masterman's ' Food Fishes.' For 

 the first four decades the progress was slow. A few years of 

 interregnum with indications of change of front succeeded. 

 Lastly, fully another decade of rapid issue of quite a different 

 order of fish literature, and information as to their everyday 

 habits, breeding, &c. 



I have avoided discussing, except by mere incidental refer- 

 ence, what influence other countries may have exerted in the 

 production of change in our own. As a matter of fact this has 

 been considerable. To continental and American authorities and 

 their governmental action we are primarily indebted for many 

 important investigations and movements in fishery questions. 

 The Cod and Herring breeding and migration, the surface fauna, 

 sea-fish hatching and marine laboratories, besides other matters, 

 have often received their earlier attention, and we in this country, 

 lagging behind, have at last only too gladly availed ourselves of 

 their priority. Our haphazard mode and mere outcome of in- 

 dividual personal interest have obliged us, one is almost ashamed 

 to say, to follow the stranger's leading. That hurry-up of the 

 last decade, as of old, has been a matter of necessity to keep in 

 line with the advance guard. It may be questionable if we are 

 not yet the rear guard in some ways. 



To whither we have arrived at in the study of our economic 

 Sea Fishes is best made evident in the pages of the lately published 

 volumes of Mcintosh* and of Cunningham,! respectively the 

 product of the St. Andrews (Gatty) and of the Plymouth Marine 

 Laboratories. The authors, while having been active workers 

 themselves in the subjects under consideration, yet avow that 

 their form of book production is but intended as a summary of the 

 most recent and important scientific investigations, otherwise 

 scattered through many British and Foreign Transactions, journals, 

 periodicals, &c. 



* ■ The Life Histories of the British Marine Food Fishes.' By Prof. W. 

 C. Mcintosh and Asst. Prof. A. T. Masterinan, University of St. Andrews. 

 8vo. London, 1897. 



f ■ The Natural History of the Marketable Marine Fishes of the British 

 Islands.' By J. T. Cunningham, Naturalist, Brit. Marine Biol. Assoc. 8vo. 

 London, 181)1). 



