Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/206

178 so near as to plainly hear (so marvellously are sounds carried over the water) the resounding blows and the feeble and ever feebler snorting of the succumbing Whale, which would have doubtless sounded out of harm's way but for the forbidding blade of some watchful Saw-fish which had made common cause with the assassins. How long the unequal combat had lasted before our arrival I am unable to say; but the end soon came, a commotion around the now motionless leviathan plainly indicating that the victors, assisted, perchance, by other Sharks, were already sampling the blubber."

There are many illustrations, and those of Australian fishes are particularly useful.

massive volume of 1240 pages is but Part I. of a colossal undertaking, and we are promised an atlas, containing anatomical figures and illustrations of many of the more important species on the completion of the second volume. In this instalment no less than 522 genera and 1627 species are described, and the publication forms No. 47 of the 'Bulletin of the United States National Museum.'

From the geographical limits of the fauna studied, it will be evident that the work will somewhat anticipate the description and enumeration of Pisces in the 'Biologia Centrali Americana' of Godman and Salvin, though of course it covers a far wider area, and apart from its special value to ichthyologists is a welcome addition to the zoological library, affording a handy and trustworthy book of reference as to the distribution of nearctic and of many neotropical fishes.

The text is naturally of a more or less technical description, though there are some passages which have the charm of narrative. Thus, in dealing with the family Percidæ, of which the great majority of the species treated belong to the subfamily