Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/67

Rh the potentialities of zoological discovery of the most absorbing interest, liable almost to provoke romantic speculation. As the once discredited Herodotus has now been rehabilitated by recent African discovery, so some of the wild traditions of ocean life may come to have an explanation; myths to have some kind of realities, and fables prove to have been at least based on facts. We have, however, some negative data to qualify supposition. "The recent investigations of Mr. Agassiz in the Pacific, with the Tanner net, seem to show pretty conclusively that there are but few living forms below a depth of 1800 or 2000 feet." On those found still deeper the abyssal environment has produced much modification. Thus of Lionurus filicauda, Günther, reported as from great depth, its describer refers to the small eye, the soft bones, the lack of firmness in the scales, and the filamentous tail as indicating its abyssal abode.

As one turns over these more than 500 quarto pages devoted to generic and specific descriptions, with the careful details of local habitats, and when the reader may have done something of this monographic and faunistic work himself, he cannot help feeling that apart from all else, the patient labour of zoologists is an established fact. Such authors have few readers, appeal alone to their peers, and did they accept the axiom of Goethe, that he "who does not expect a million of readers should not write a line," works like those under notice would never be produced.

The accompanying Atlas contains 417 figures.

beautiful publication may be taken as the last contribution of the late Henry Seebohm to British Ornithology. Other material may yet be printed, but it will not probably wholly pertain to "our rough island story." It is a fitting sequel to the same author's 'History of British Birds,' and though Seebohm did not live to see it published, there can be no doubt that his wish would have been gratified in having it edited by his friend Bowdler Sharpe. The system of classification is as proposed by