leaves the water and springs some ten feet into the air, shaking himself violently with the hope of casting off the hook, which he will do unless it is firmly fixed deep in his mouth, or tear off his jaw in the attempt. Another leap, another and another, with all the frenzy of the wild horse when he first feels the lasso, he springs through the air and dashes through the water; for a time there appears to be no diminution of his immense strength, but you may notice that after a while the long curve he at first described in the air becomes broken, shorter grow the graceful leaps, and finally change into a violent jerking summersaultthen all is calm. The fisherman pulls on the line; one last glorious effort of those splendid powers is made-right in a line with and towards the fisherman; the grande ecaillé takes his last leap, and falls helpless into the sea. Now a child can take him without resistance-no struggling, a dead weight upon the line, he is hauled upon the beach. He flounces not, his fins are laid to his body, his gill covers do not move, he is dead! And not until death came upon him did the mighty and beautiful creature surrender himself to the superior robber.

I have often seen a school of red fish knocking the mullet into the air. I have seen troops of flying fish retreating from the lovely dolphin, I have heard for miles the roar of an immense company of mullet flying in short, regular leaps before a herd of porpoises, or a family of sharks, by whose giant forms I have seen the sea beaten into bubbles, as they lashed and struck among the frightened mullet, from my boyhood up. I have seen man prey upon his fellow-man, but never has it fallen to my lot to witness so magnificent a sight of the strong preying upon the weak as that presented by the grand ecailles. The yellow rays of the setting sun would glance upon the silver armor of a thousand forms leaping in every possible direction, crossing and recrossing, yet never striking, the air was filled with the small sardine thrown from their native element to be devoured as they touched the water, the green gulf was lashed into a sea of foam, and the bright rainbows were everywhere visible in the scene. We passed through them many times, hoping that one might leap into the boat, caught them by the tails as they swam slowly by, and cursed our lot that we had brought no harpoon. It was a brilliant sight-one which in all probability had not been seen on so grand a scale before, as they rarely run more than three or four together, and one which it may be my lot never to witness again.

MR

PROBLEMS FOR ZOOLOGISTS.

BY J. S. KINGSLEY.

R. S. H. Scudder in his address before the Entomological Section at the Boston meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, presented some of the problems which the entomologist has yet to solve, and acting upon the hint which his article affords, I would here state some of the questions in other departments of zoology which are as yet unanswered. Throughout our land there are several hundred people who are greatly interested in zoology, but the greater portion of them through lack of guidance and through misdirected efforts, add nothing to the stock of scientific knowledge which the world possesses. On the shoulders of a few falls all of the original investigation done in America to-day. It is to that larger class who are willing to work, but who do not know how to work, or what to work upon, that this article is addressed. Some of the problems are simple, needing only a slight amount of experience, and a moderate amount of skill, while others require for their elucidation the trained investigator. To state all the problems requiring solution, would take more space than is contained in a volume of this magazine; a few only, therefore, are presented.

Hermann Fol has recently described the effects produced upon the eggs of star-fishes when two or more spermatozoa enter it at the same time. An abnormal segmentation ensues, proceeding from two or more centers, and resulting in a compound gastrula. This would suggest a possible explanation of the cause of double monsters, and assign an answer for a much vexed question in teratology. A single fact is but a slender foundation for generalizations of this character, and hence observations are needed to ascertain whether in other groups a multiple impregnation produces a compound gastrula, and if so, what the gastrula in turn

produces.

The eggs of a few animals have been studied while becoming mature, and when the impregnation was taking place, and with wonderful results. Yet but a very few forms have thus been studied, and detailed accounts of the phenomena of the maturation and impregnation of eggs are needed in almost every group. The eggs of the larger proportion of the animal kingdom in becoming mature form what are known as polar globules. With the possible exception noted by Grobben, these polar globules

have not been found in the eggs of insects and crustacea, but our information on this point is still of a negative character, and new and careful investigation may conclusively show that the Arthropoda in this respect do not form an exception to the rule that the extrusion of polar globules is one of the features of the maturation of the eggs of all animals.

Grobben when studying the development of a small fresh-water crustacean (Moina), found that certain cells, which eventually formed the genital organs, were differentiated at nearly the same time as the epiblast and hypoblast. Metchnikow has also found in an insect that the reproductive organs were very early developed. When we consider that the chief end and purpose of every animal is the reproduction of its kind, this early appearance of the genital organs is what should be expected, but as yet, so far as I am aware, these two observations stand alone. Here is possibly a fruitful field for some ardent student.

In the waters of the whole eastern United States (with the exception of New England), and the Mississippi basin, are to be found representatives of a family of Mollusca peculiar to the American continent, the Strepomatidæ (Melanians). Of this family numerous genera and many hundred nominal species have been described, but as yet we know nothing of their embryology and but little of their anatomy. With the exception of a paper on the structure of two genera by the late Dr. Stimpson, a few short notes is the sum total of our knowledge of true "soft parts." We cordially commend the investigation of the "Melanians" to the naturalists of the Mississippi basin.

The fauna of the United States is exceedingly rich in Urodelous Batrachia, and a fine field is open for a comparative study of their visceral anatomy and their myology. Their osteology, however, has been pretty carefully studied, though the results are not yet published in full. European embryologists have confined their studies of the development of the Batrachia to the tailless forms, while Dr. Clark is the only American who has contributed anything of any extent to our knowledge of the life history of the salamander, and his observations are principally on the external changes.

The calf fish (Amia) of the Western rivers is a representative of

1 The observations of Scott and Osborn should not be overlooked, though published in England.

a group of fishes of whose development almost nothing is known, and a detailed account of its embryology would have an interest and importance only excelled among the vertebrates by that of Ceratodus. The gar pike's development has only been studied by Mr. Agassiz, and his observations are very incomplete, though very important. A study of the development of any of the Amiurida (cat fish and horned pouts) would be very interesting and instructive, and would amply repay the person who will undertake it, while the man who investigates the method of growth of Myxine, so common at Eastport, will have an entirely unexplored field to himself.

The problems which we have stated are almost entirely embryological, and it is in this line of development that the most important results are to be reached. A future article will present more of the anatomical side.

:0:

RECENT LITERATURE.

THE ZOOLOGICAL RECORD FOR 1880.-This volume, the seventeenth of the series, has appeared with commendable promptness, and Mr. Rye, the editor, assures us that this rate of issue will henceforth be maintained. The recorders of the different departments are nearly the same as in the preceding volume.

It appears that the number of new genera and sub-genera contained in the present volume is 1008, as against 976 of Vol. XVI (which contained sixty new genera of Arachnida, properly belonging to Vol. xv, from which that group had been omitted). These are divided, as follows: Mammalia, 34; Aves, 16; Reptilia, 216; Pisces, 31; Mollusca and Molluscoida, 79; Crustacea, 80; Arachnida, 78; Myriopoda, 2; Insecta, 438; Vermes, 28; Echinodermata, 24; Cœlenterata, 70; Spongida, 51; and Protozoa, 56. The number of pages is about the same as in the preceding volume. On p. 3, Myriopoda, we notice an important error. Mr. Ryder's order Symphyla is spelled Symphuta, the name not being repeated in the note under the heading thus misspelled.

This record is of the greatest service to the systematic zoologist, and to none more than those who are unfortunate enough not to be within reach of large libraries. Hence the American zoologist needs the "Record," if he has no other works.

THE FISH FAUNA OF BORNEO.2-In Vol. XVI of the Annals of the Genoa Museum of Natural History, D. Vinciguerra comThe Record of Zoological Literature. London. Van Voorst. 1881. 8vo. 'Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova. Vol. XVI. D. VINCIGUERRA. Appanti ittiologici sulle collezioni de Museo Civico di Genova IV. Prima contribuzione alla Fauna Ittiologica di Borneo, pp. 161-182.

mences the publication of the results of the examination of a rich collection of fishes made by the Marquis Giacomo Doria and Dr. Odoardo Beccari during their residence at Sarawak.

Eighteen species of Siluroids, two of them new to science, and two others not before known to occur in Borneo are described; raising, with six species enumerated by E. Von Martens in the Zoology of the Prussian Expedition to Eastern Asia, the total number of known Bornean siluroids to fifty-eight.

The writer remarks that he finds many new species in this collection, and that this may be expected from the fact that, except Bleeker, few naturalists have collected the fishes of the island.

H. Schlegel, S. Müller, and J. Richardson had noted only ten Bornean species before the time of Bleeker, who, examining the collections made by Dutch government officials, raised the number to three hundred and forty, all of which were from few localities.

Since that date the only additions to our ichthyological knowledge of Borneo have been the description by Dr. A. Günther of two species of Gobiidæ, which formed part of the Doria collection, and the chapter by Martens on ninety-four species of freshwater fishes from the rivers Kapuas and Sambas.

MARK'S MATURATION, FECUNDATION AND SEGMENTATION OF LIMAX. This work is very timely, and is valuable, both from the original facts it contains regarding the intricate subject of the preparation of the egg of the slug for fertilization, as well as the latter process, and the mode of segmentation, which is of great value from the detailed exposition for the English-reading student of a department of embryology which has been mapped out mainly by German embryologists.

The author first gives us his own original observations, illustrated by five excellent double plates, and then presents us with a lengthy discussion and review of all the papers and works which have been published on the earliest phases of embryonic development above enumerated.

In the third part, Dr. Mark presents theoretical considerations and general conclusions regarding the promorphology of the ovum, polar phenomena, asters, spiral asters, the nuclear spindle, origin of nuclei, the germinative vesicle and polar globules. The appearance of such a profound, critical summary of what is known on these points, should give a stimulus to those studies in this country. The treatment of the subject by the author is clear, candid, and the matter well digested and elaborated.

GENTRY'S NESTS AND EGGS.2-It is hard to say whether we look upon these beautiful colored lithographs, representing the nests 1 Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Vol. VI, No. Maturation, Fecundation and Segmentation of Limax campestris Binney. By E. L. MARK, Cambridge, Oct., 1881. 8vo, pp. 173–625. 5 plates.

12.

Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of the United States. J. A. Wagenseller, 23 N. Sixth street, Philadelphia.