126 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXV Ik 



an Angle," the first book on the subject of fishing printed in England, 

 was published by Wynkyn DeWordein 1496. and the fust edition of 

 the Rook of St. Albans, that of i486, did not contain it. The cornea 

 of the eye of fishes is said to be flat on page 307, the teeth on the 

 head of the vomer of chars are badly treated on pages 274 and 288, 

 the explanation of color on pnge 304 is not well done, and various 

 items have been overlooked in proofreading. 



The book is beautifully illustrated and printed ; it contains a large 

 proportion of all that is known of American Salmon and Trout and 

 concerning their capture. 



Boulenger on the Relationship of the Flounders. — In the 



Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Vol. X, pp. 295-304) 

 Dr. Boulenger has a very suggestive discussion of the origin of 

 the group of flounders or flatfishes. 



He rejects entirely the idea that these fishes are related to the 

 codfishes, with which group they agree in the absence of fin spines 

 and in little else. 



They are obviously more nearly related to the ordinary spinous- 

 rayed fishes, showing a general similarity in the structure of skeleton, 

 especially the shoulder girdle, the pelvis, and the tail. The 

 increased number of ventral rays and other characters show real 

 affinity with Zeus. Dr. Boulenger regards the John Dory, Zeus 

 faber, as the nearest living ally of the flounders. In the Eocene 

 rocks is found a genus, Amphistium, the type of a family Amphi- 

 stiidae. regarded by Boulenger as clearly intermediate between Zens 

 and the rhomboid flounders, which are the earliest known represen- 

 tatives of that group. The three families, Zeidae, Amphistiida-, and 

 Pleuronectida-, are joined together by Boulenger to form a new 

 division of spiny-rayed fishes, which he calls Zeorhombi. The 

 Amphistiidae differ from the flounders almost solely in the sym- 

 metrical head and eyes, and have essentially the structure c f the 

 flounder larva, so far as the skeleton is concerned. 



Incidentally Dr. Boulenger discusses the suggestion of the present 

 writer that the notable fact of the smaller number of vertebra? in 

 tropical fishes is due to the specialization of natural selection, a 

 process less rapid in the cold regions, the fresh waters and the 

 open seas. Dr. Boulenger claims that the form with twenty-four 

 vertebrae, characteristic of the tropics, are at the same time the more 

 primitive, and that the prevalence of this number of vertebrae in so 

 many different groups simply indicates their common descent from 



