The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1900-09-04
FISH COMMISSION BOOKS.
Printed on the Most Expensive of the
Governments Paper.

Printed on the Most Expensive of the
Governments Paper.
The scholarly gentlemen who furnish
examples in erudition to the United
States Fish Commission have just added
three new booklets to their fascinating
home-cuIture series Realizing that the
real purpose Of the Commission is TO fos-
ter the food fishes of the country, and
not to furnish a few scientific men with
expensive works on obtruse topics free Of
cost, the Commission has made these new
books OF a heart-to-heart character
which is bound to give them wide promi-
hence
The new pamphlets are evidently in
tended to form pleasant and instructive
| summer reading for the millions who
have been compelled to stay at home
during the hot weather One cannot
speak too enthusiastically Of them They
wil, without doubt, have a permanent
place along with the Patent Office re-
ports in the huge heaps of information
which the Government has placed at the
bidding of the humbest citizen of the
great Republic. The Commission has de-
voted the first of the three new booklets
to The fishes OF Hawaii.
Oliver p. Jenkins, who is described on
the title page as professor of physiology III
the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, is
| the author Of this never sufhctentiy-to-be be-
praised monograph Mr. jenkins has, IN
| the highest degree all the mastery
| opaqueness of literary style that marks the
| products of the Fish Commission. He
can throw majestic polysyllabies around
with the complete abandon of scholar
| who has plenty more on hand. His new
booklet is entitled THE Labridae and the
Scaridae." AS might be imagined. 1t is
| fairly reeking with human interest. From
| the moment that one starts in on the mac
ropharyngodon aquilolo Jenkins, until
| GREATNESS with anxiety, the reader reaches
| the graphic description of the Pseudocheih-
nus octOtaenia jenkins, interest never flags
| for a single moment.
| One cannot do justice to this wonderful
| piece of word painting. The following gem
| Of descriptive writing, however, may give
| the reader some faint idea of what Prof
! Jenkins can do when he feels we'll. The
| subject is the Anampses overmani Jenkins,
| which, as one can tell by looking at the
/ picture on that page, is a fish. But let
! Mr.. Jenkins tell the story himself:
"Opercles with prominent situations ra-
! dating from upper anterior angle, stria-
| lions also on the subopercle, pTeopercle,
and interopercIe pectoraI olive. anterior
! margin blUs The celebration of the first is
/ almost exactly the same as in AnampseS
! cuvieri."
/ It is safe to say that nothing since the
! days Of the 4-Novum Organum' has ever
/ eQualed that in pungent, spicy, and con
else description. One cannot read il
without a feeling of intimate acquaintance
/ with the Anampses overmania Jenkins.
Word comes from Chicago that a Sunday
| school superintendent of the Windy City
| gives either a goat or Bible to each
| pupil who feIches six young sinners into
! the fold. The results have not been equal
! TO expectation. 1t is safe to say, how
ever, that if the superintendent will offer
| a monograph on the Thalassoma pyrrho-
I vinctum Jenkins instead of the goat, he
| Will have his school so crowded with new
| pupils that the children will have to
roost in the chandeliers
The second of the Fish Commissions
! new books is a treatise on the ROtatoria,
| Il is profusely illustrated with ilIustra-
| lions printed on the best Compound plate
| paper in the Government Office Merely
| by looking at the pictures, nobody would
! guess that Rotatoria were being represent
ed. The drawings, to an untutored eye,
| look like q military map of the country
| between Pekin and Tientsil.
The Rotatoria. it seems IS a sort OF pol
| Iywog which lives III obscure marshes
| near Chicago. To the vulgar mind, ignor-
| ant of its true name. it would look like a
mere water bug-if indeed it could be
/ seen at all, for the Rotatoria is about
| the size OF q very small pinhead. Millions
| Of people have gone down TO miserable
doom without even having known the true
name of the poilywog. Millions Of living
souls are now so immersed in darkness
| that they do not even know that the Rota-
| toria are divided into three sOTts-the Thi-
| zota the baeIloida and the plOima which
OF course includes the foscularidae the
| microcodonUdae the dinocharis, and the
| pleurO-tarcha.
| All that however,. is told in the PAM
| phIet and the veil Of darkness which too
long has hung over these noble polIywogs
| is happily lifted at last.
1t is an imposing document of fifty pages
| and 1t gives a personal description and
portrait of every living pollywog, There
/ are more pictures in it than in tiTe rogue s
| gallery. 1t IS one of the most completely
| satisfying books ever written. The myr-
| lads of people who have been hanlzering to
| know ali about Rotatoria can lay down the
| volume after a sIeep!ess night spent in
studying il and feel satisfied that they
! know as much about the subject Of which
it treats as they did before.
The last of the new books relates to the
ferocious Pelagic Copepods. 1t seems that
| they are about the size Of a flea and have
| from FIVE Il twenty-five feet apiece and
/ season The reader will grasp these facts
by reading the following description OF the
| ?elagic copepod candacidae:
| Anterior antennae with proximaI joints
iucrassated with cTenated anterior mar.
/ gin; aesthetasks delicate; mandible with
voluminous basal and kaulade- Anterior
maxilIiped elongated, distal bristles fall
cate"
There is a plot of intense dramatic pow
er running throughout this pamphlet. Il
would be cruel to spoil the pleasure of tia
future reader by telling the outcome of
the book. II is enough to suggest that in
the last chapter the Corycaeus elongatus
has complete cephaIOthoraX and an inner
ramus.
1t would be we'll to make application at
once for the new booklets as there is GER
tain 10 be an enormous demand for them
The broad pages, so grateful to the eye,
are particularly well fitted for laying I'M
der carpets, and as fall housekeeping will
soon be here no mistake will be made II,
applying at once for liberal supply OF the
new volumes. Owing 10 the superior grade
of paper used in the Fish Commission re
ports, its pamphlets are much more desir,
ebIe than either the Patent Office docu,
ments or the annals of the Geodetic Sur
vey, which heretofore had been the stand
ard for use under carpets.
Opening an Andree Ruoy.
(Stcckholm despatch .to the London Globe)
At a meeting of the Academy of Science yester
! day and in the presence of the Arctic explorer.