Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/215

Rh so, whether the pigmy belt of the three-mile or even the thirteen-mile limit can have any more influence on this form than on the ever-abundant Herring?" In this able defence of the "trawl," we may realize what a destructive, though not altogether exterminative agent it is; but beyond this the book is a welcome addition to a knowledge of the inhabitants of that most romantic and little-known region which we call the Sea.

is a problem which lies at the root of a philosophical conception of the much-used and much-vexed term "species." We all agree that the various breeds of Fowls and Pigeons represent but one species, because we know their life-histories. But we describe new forms of animals received from abroad as species on the canon of what is understood as "specific differences." Hence philosophically we are wrong, and systematically we are right, and the same practice and a similar rule are employed by naturalists throughout the animal kingdom. Even mankind have afforded the same problem, and from France also came a suggestive little book by Dr. Paul Broca, which was translated and published in London in 1864 under the title of 'On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo.'

Mons. Suchetet has undertaken a great work, and if succeeding volumes are allied in size to this one devoted to birds, a colossal publication on the subject is assured. The limitations attached to the term "species" are apparent when our author remarks:—"Nous avons substitue les mots formes animales aux mots 'espèces animales,' parce que notre embarras a été grand lorsqu'il's'est agi de distinguer entre l'espèce et la race (ou, pour mieux dire, entre l'espèce et la sous-espèce comme on fait emploi de ce mot en zoologie)." The introduction occupies no fewer than 118 pages, and is a valuable summary of most that has been written on the subject. In the "Liste des Musées Publics et des Collections Particulières dont les Directeurs ou les Propriétaires ont été assez gracieux pour nous envoyer en communication," we notice seventy-eight entries, the cosmopolitan character of which prove that the material has been widely sought; while the "Liste