No. 504] NOTES AND LITERATURE 



809 



of the mouth, and there are certain peculiarities in the structure 

 of the bones connecting with the tongue. 



In the "Actes de la Societe Linneenne de Bordeaux," 1907, 

 Dr. Pellegrin describes a collection of fishes taken on the west 

 coast of Africa, with useful notes as to their distribution. The 

 nomenclature adopted is rather outworn, and not much notice 

 is taken of questions of priority of names. The illustrations are 

 photographs, very obscurely printed. It may be noted that 

 Sardinella aurita, type of the genus Sardinella, is a large-scaled 

 herring of the group called Harengula. The name Sardinella 

 has priority over Harengula, and the name Sardinia must be 

 used for the true sardine. 



In the Comptes rendus of the French Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Dr. Pellegrin gives an interesting account 

 of the incubation of the eggs of marine cat-fishes. The male 

 takes care of the egg and the young, taking into the mouth from 

 ten to twenty eggs. The young are retained in the mouth until 

 the yolksac is absorbed. During this period of incubation the 

 male does not feed. 



In the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Dr. R. 

 W. Tower discusses the production of sound in sciaenoid and 

 other fishes. In this very lucid paper it is shown that these 

 fishes "known as drums, croakers or roncadores" have specific 

 drumming muscles, superficially attached to the swim-bladder. 

 For this muscle Dr. Tower proposes the name musculus sonificus. 

 The cause of the drumming or grunting noise is the contraction 

 of this muscle, which produces a vibration of the abdominal 

 walls and organs, especially the swim-bladder. In the sciaenoid 

 fish, the mechanism is adapted to the production of rapidly re- 

 peated sounds or rolls. In other fishes which grunt, as the sea- 

 robin and toadfish, the muscles are intrinsically connected with 

 the swim-bladder, and are known as intrinsic muscles. These 

 muscles produce a vibration in the walls of the swim-bladder 

 which may be repeated at intervals. Dr. Tower gives a number 

 of valuable plates showing the structure of these organs, and 

 also a graphic record of the sounds produced. 



In the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 

 H. Walton Clark describes the Plankton of the Lakes of Guate- 

 mala. 



In the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Volume 25, Dr. L. Hussakof gives a catalogue of the fossil fishes 



