Pleuronectes Liverpool Marine Biology Committee's Memoirs on Typical British Marine Plants and Animals

Abstract

OF the now numerous publications of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee which have appeared since its foundation, none are of greater service to zoologists and students than those of the series to which the volume under review belongs. They are each a detailed study of some individual organism, prepared by a writer or writers specially familiar with the group to which it belongs; and under this guarantee of authority, they are consequently welcome and most useful wherever the zoology of the British seas is studied or taught. The first memoir, on the “Ascidian,” by Prof. Herdman (to whom honour is due for having inspired and initiated this most admirable series), appeared but in 1899; and in the interval of little more than two years which has elapsed, there have been published seven others—the present volume being the eighth. In bulk and descriptive detail, this is by far the most extensive and elaborate yet issued, since it is nearly three times the size of its heaviest predecessor, and is illustrated by eleven plates as compared with a previous maximum of seven. When, however, it is remembered that it has two authors and deals with a verteb rate, and that it exhausts not only the organology, but treats of the life-history, habits and economic aspects of the fish selected for treatment, it is evident that a just allocation has been given it. Indeed, in its method of treatment it is at once both wider and more special than its predecessors.

Pleuronectes. Liverpool Marine Biology Committee's Memoirs on Typical British Marine Plants and Animals.

No. viii. By F. J. Cole and Jas. Johnstone. Pp. 252; 11 plates, 5 text figures and a table. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1901.) Price 7s.¹