HDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 4] 
Marine (das Seewasser) Aquarium is treated with much greater brevity, 
though more space is afforded to the Vivarium (das Terrarium), and some 
suitable plants for the same detailed. Altogether the last section has been 
more fully treated by the Rev. G. C. Bateman (vide ‘ Zoologist,’ 1897, 
p. 478); but Dr. Zernecke’s volume is well illustrated, and will prove a 
useful handbook on a subject as yet none too well known. 
GunERAL Nicolas de Depp, who is evidently an enthusiastic pisciculturist, 
has contributed to the ‘ Bull. Soc. Nat. d’Acclimatation de France’ (October, 
1897), under the title ‘ L’Aquarium-Serre,’ a description, with plans and 
views, of aquaria and necessary buildings which he has constructed on his 
residential property at Odessa. Many useful hints as to structure and 
appliances are given, while the combination of plant-conservatory and 
aquarium is not only to be highly commended, but is also a sequence which 
in its infrequency creates surprise. 
‘On Chlamydoselachus anguineus, Garm., a remarkable Shark found in 
Norway, 1896,’ is the title of a memoir recently published at Christiania, 
by Prof. R. Collett. This Shark which was only described in 1884, and of 
which there are at least fifteen specimens preserved in the different 
museums of Kurope and America, is one of the most remarkable of living 
fish. It is not ‘closely related to any present variety of Shark, or to any 
that have become extinct in later periods of the earth’s existence,” but its 
‘ancestors belonged to the older paleeozoic formation—the Devonian—when 
there lived forms of Sharks whose teeth were comparatively of the same 
nature as those of the present specimen. No known vertebrate has thus its 
nearest kindred so far back towards the dawn of organic existence. In 
other words—Chlamydoselachus is the oldest of all living types of verte- 
brates.” The fish under notice was caught in a net at Buggnes, in the 
Varanger Fjord (69° 45’ N. lat.), on the 4th August, 1896, which had been 
set at a depth of about 100 to 150 fathoms for catching Ooal-fish (Gadus 
virens). 
Prof. Collett remarks :—‘‘ When one regards the eel-like construction 
of its body, the almost serpentine head, its deeply cleft mouth, the frilled 
and protruding gill coverings, and its formidable array of teeth, which call 
to mind the python’s, one’s thoughts turn to that mythical creature which, 
with more or less regularity, is annually described, or even depicted, in 
the columns of newspapers, whose existence, however, has never been 
confirmed, but which, as a rule, is believed in by all (except by naturalists), 
namely, ‘the Sea Serpent’; and the Chlamydoselachus, in fact, appears to 
satisfy most demands of an ideal sea serpent.” 
