1881.] Zoology. 565 
of fishes from the Pacific Coast of North America, distributed by 
the Smithsonian Institution, in behalf of the National Museum, to 
different college museums. These collections are of great value, 
comprising many rare typical forms, and will do much towards 
the progress of ichthyology. Valuable notes on the fishes of the 
Pacific coast by Messrs. Jordan and Gilbert appear in the same 
periodical. Among ornithological papers in the signature of the 
same Proceedings, issued April 13, 1881, is the description of a 
duck, Fuligula rufina (Pallas), which is new to the United States, 
having been found in the New York market, and supposed to 
have been shot on Long Island sound. rom his extended 
observations on the food of the fresh-water fishes of Illinois, Mr. 
S. A. Forbes is impressed with the “supreme importance of 
Entomostraca and the minute aquatic larve of Diptera as food for 
nearly or quite all of our fresh-water fishes, a conclusion that 
gives these trivial and neglected creatures, of whose very existerice 
the majority of people are scarcely aware, a prominent place among 
the most valuable animals of the State, for without them all our 
waters would be virtually depopulated.” He also brings out the 
interesting conclusion that a prolific species having an abundant 
food Supply, and itself the most important food of predaceous 
fishes, may, by extraordinary multiplication, so diminish the food 
of the young of the latter as to cause, through its own abundance, 
a serious diminution of the numbers of the very species which 
prey upon it. It is not certain that the excessive increase of the 
gizzard shad would, by eventually reducing the supply of Ento- 
Mostraca, cause a corresponding reduction in the numbers of all 
the species of that stream by starvation of the young; and this 
decimation, applying to all in the same ratio, would take effect 
upon the ordinary number of the other species, but upon the ex- 
traordinary number of the gizzard shad, would reduce the other 
Species below the usual limit, but might not even cut off the ex- 
cess of the shad above that limit. Consequently, important as is 
the supply of food-fishes for the predaceous species, it is not less 
‘portant that the predaceous species should be supplied to eat 
up the food, The third volume of Dr. G. S. Brady’s Mono- 
graph of the Copepod Crustacea of the British Islands, published 
7 
Portant faunal entomological lists by Prof. F. H. Snow, of Kan- 
sas, Colorado and New Mexico; articles on the Batrachian rep- 
of Kansas, by F, W. Cragin; and notes on the birds of 
iley county, Kansas, by Dr. Blachly. 
