Etheostomatinæ (the Darters), "all the species of which group are American," and in considering the relation of the Darters to the Perches, the authors have quoted Prof. Stephen A. Forbes. According to this authority:—"Given a supply of certain kinds of food nearly inaccessible to the ordinary fish, it is to be expected that some fishes would become especially fitted for its utilization. Thus the Etheostomatinæ as a group are explained in a word by the hypothesis of the progressive adaptation of the young of certain Percidæ to a peculiar place of refuge and a peculiarly situated food supply. Perhaps we may without violence call these the mountaineers among fishes. Forced from the populous and fertile valleys of the river-beds and lake-bottoms, they have taken refuge from their enemies in the rocky highlands, where the free waters play in ceaseless torrents, and there they have wrested from stubborn nature a meagre living. Although diminished in size by their constant struggle with the elements, they have developed an activity and hardihood, a vigour of life, and a glow of high colour almost unknown among the easier livers of the lower lands.... Notwithstanding their trivial size, they do not seem to be dwarfed so much as concentrated fishes."
A pleasant feature in this volume is its dedication "To the memory of those ichthyologists of the past who have studied American fishes in America, in token of the only reward they asked—a grateful remembrance of their work." There follow forty-eight names in this roll-call, commencing with Georg Marcgraf, 1610–1644, and concluding with Marshall McDonald, 1836–1895.
This brochure pertains to the atmosphere of ornithological polemics. It is "a consideration of Herr Gätke's views," but it is scarcely an approval of any of them. The work criticised is the well-known 'Die Vogelwarte Helgoland,' of which an English translation appeared in 1895, and was, as Mr. Whitlock correctly remarks, "hailed with universal welcome."
However, science is democratic, and though Herr Gätke—whose
