The Natural History Of The Marketable Marine Fishes Of The British Islands.
£65.00
Publisher
Macmillan and Co. Ltd.
Place
London
Date
1890
Synopsis
Prepared by order of the council of the marine biological association especially for the use of those interested in the sea-fishing industries. with a preface by e. ray lankester, f.r.s.
Item Description
8vo. 6.5 x 9 inches. xvi + 375 pp. Bound in half dark blue morocco, gilt; spine in compartments with raised bands, decorated gilt, with gilt title. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. A little wear to extremities and slight sunning of upper edges of boards and top edges; otherwise a very good clean copy. Signature at head of title. Illustrated by 159 numbered text figures and by 2 folding coloured maps at end. Decorated by publisher's device on verso of title. The first part examines marine fishes in general, including their development and fish culture; the second part describes individual families and species of fish. The author, Joseph Thomas Cunningham (1859-1935) was a marine biologist, who carried out experiments on the pigmentation of flatfish. This led him to the conclusion that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was through a hormonal system rather than by the Darwinian mechanism of sexual selection. Edwin Ray Lankester (1847-1929), who wrote the preface, was an influential invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, President of the Marine Biological Association and Director of the Natural History Museum, 1898-1907.
[Stock No. 26462]