Abstract
THE present volume of this finely illustrated work finishes the account of the Verteorates with the history of the Fishes, and gets over as well an immense mass of the Invertebrates. The story of the Fishes is contributed by Prof. H. G. Seeley, who, in the limited compass of 150 pages, of which about one-sixth is occupied with figures, has given a very fair and comprehensive notice of this class. The Fishes are the only primary division of the Vertebrata which live in water, and have no representatives passing their lives upon land or in the air. This condition of existence is probably the cause of the close correspondence in bodily form in the majority of fishes, which progress through the water chiefly by movements of the tail, and use the fins as organs with which to steer a path. “Clear as is the idea which rises in the mind at the mention of a fish, the multitude of forms which fishes exhibit are greater, perhaps, than those to be found in any of the other great groups of Vertebrate animals described in the previous four volumes of this series. The slender form of the lamprey or eel contrasts with the expanded body of the turbot or the plaice; the short deep form of the sun-fish is unlike the broad, flattened, and long-tailed skate; the sea-horses, when attached to sea-weeds by their prehensile tails, at first sight present none of the familiar characteristics of fishes. The flying-fish, which have the fins so expanded as to serve some of the purposes of wings, present a remarkable contrast to the spheroidal spiny body of the globe-fish, while the hammer-headed shark exhibits a form of body in some respects more singular still. When we turn to details of proportion and structure, and contrast the shapes of the head or of the tail, the variety among fishes is altogether exuberant.”
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Popular Natural History 1 . Nature 25, 107–109 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/025107a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025107a0