Fish

Fishes captured in the fresh waters of the British Isles are not for the most part of great commercial importance. The Salmonoids are a notable exception to this statement, for the Salmon and Trout are valued food-fishes, and the Windermere Char and the Lough Neagh Pollan are netted in numbers for market.

A small collection of fishes was obtained in the Athi River by the museums East African expedition of 1905-7.

In this volume the freshwater fishes of Europe are systematically described for the first time. Such an undertaking has been rendered comparatively easy by the valuable special memoirs which have been published upon the fishes of the several European countries.

The present work on Scomber was begun in the laboratory of the author in 1892 by Dr. J. Dewitz and was continued with frequent interruptions until spring 1898. After that Mr. Jujiro Nomura continued this work.

Much of the larger part of the purely investigative work on which the present memoir is based was done in 1886 in connection with an other work of the author about the fish Amia calva. The author decided that he wanted to publish another work and the result is this publication.

The author describes that the general course and position of the lateral canals in fishes have long been known and their arrangements shown in numerous special works. The purely descriptive part has according to the author been neglected.

Since the completion of Part I. of this Catalogue in 1889 and the publication of part II. a great progress has been made in the examination and careful study of the Collection of Fossil Fishes. This is due to the experienced gained by the author because of his visits to other museums.

The present volume was a first attempt at a systematic treatment of the Paleontology of the Elasmobranch fishes.