Traité Raisonné de la Pisciculture et des Pêches

Abstract

FRANCE has held aloof from the international fishery investigations in which most of the other countries of northern Europe have been engaged during the last decade, and such fishery work as has been carried out by Frenchmen has progressed upon somewhat independent lines. It is therefore interesting to receive a general work by a Frenchman dealing with fishes and fishery questions in a comprehensive, but at the same time somewhat popular way, and to see familiar questions looked at from a different aspect and treated in a more lively and entertaining manner than that to which we have recently been accustomed. Although Prof. Roule's work is a volume of more than seven hundred pages, it must, however, be regarded neither as a text-book suited to the requirements of the student of fishery science, nor as a practical handbook for those whose business it is to concern themselves with fishery administration or with fish culture for commercial purposes. The general results of much recent scientific research are, it is true, explained in a clear and illuminating way, but little or nothing is said as to the methods, often very laborious and involving a close and minute study of a vast number of detailed observations, by which those results have been obtained. Often, too, we are afraid the author does not sufficiently discriminate between results which may be regarded as established scientific facts and mere working hypo theses which are useful enough or indeed essential as guides to future work, but would not be considered, even by those who have fathered them, as settled conclusions. Throughout the book there are no detailed references to the literature of the subject, although there are a number of references in footnotes to the names of authors well known for their fishery work.

Traité Raisonné de la Pisciculture et des Pêches.

By Prof. Louis Roule. Pp. viii + 734. (Paris: J. B. Baillière et Fils, 1914.)