Abstract
Sir William Jardine's “British Salmonidæ” “A WOBK of considerable, and in some respects of national importance,” said the Athenæum of October 19, 1839, “has long been in preparation, and one number published by Sir William Jardine on the ‘Scottish Salmonidæ’. The announced intention was a series of plates, illustrating the different species, accompanied by an octavo volume of descriptive letter-press… Though the work was nominally restricted to Scotland, because the numerous lochs, rivers and mountain streams in that country offered the greatest facility for extended observation, it would of necessity have included almost all the British species… Now our readers will hear, as we did, with surprise, that notwithstanding the scientific interest which must attach to such a work—notwithstanding the direct pecuniary interest, which many persons must have in the subject, and even its legislative importance, for we have had at least half a dozen different committees of inquiry appointed by Parliament or the Government—the work is likely to be abandoned for want of patronage—even though Sir William Jardine has consented to proceed with it if but sixty subscribers could be obtained, sufficient only to secure him against direct pecuniary loss. Surely with so many noblemen and gentlemen interested in the questions to be resolved by such a work—so many Scientific Institutions, so many Societies professedly devoted to inquiries in Natural History, scattered over the three kingdoms, this announcement will be sufficient to ensure its completion.”
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Science News a Century Ago. Nature 144, 682 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144682a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144682a0