Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/67

Rh Marine (das Seewasser) Aquarium is treated with much greater brevity, though more space is afforded to the Vivarium (das Terrarium), aud 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.

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 in frequency creates surprise.

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 Europe 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 palæozoic 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 vertebrates." The fish under notice was caught in a net at BugφnæsBugøynes [sic], 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 Coal-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."