BOOK REVIEWS

Fishes of the Salish Sea. T. W. Pietsch and J. W. Orr. Illustrated by J. R. Tomelleri. 2019. University of Washington Press. ISBN 9780295743745. Three volumes. 1032 p. $150 (hardcover).—Fishes of the Salish Sea, by Ted Pietsch and Jay Orr, is a three-volume work that covers, in considerable detail, the 260 fish species that are known to inhabit these waters. At the risk of seeming overly sycophantic, let us cut to the chase—all of you should run out and buy this tome. Okay, that duty discharged, let’s examine why you should do this. First, the book looks simply fabulous. The architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase ‘‘form ever follows function,’’ opining that the shape of an object should relate to that object’s function. However, in this instance form and function have decided to go steady and are holding hands as they stroll down the beach. And why is this? First, the volumes have a remarkably clean, open, and unhurried look. There was clearly a decision made that instead of trying to jam a lot of content into as few pages as possible, the work would be longer, probably considerably longer, but more inviting. Second, there are those dreamy illustrations of each species by one of the great illustrators of fishes in the world, Joseph Tomelleri. Mr. Tomelleri, who with his enchanted set of colored pencils is clearly channeling the magic of both Johannes Vermeer and Gandalf the Grey, has produced some of the best renderings of Salish Sea fishes (or perhaps any fishes) ever. And then there is the content. At the outset, I should tip my hat to the graceful writing style, one that finely walks the line between the overly expository and overly narrative. The first volume begins with a preface that describes why a new work on Salish Sea fishes was needed—basically the authors were frustrated at having at hand publications that were either out of date, lacking in illustrations or keys, or covering too large a geographic area. The introductory chapters include a definition and geographic boundaries of the Salish Sea, that great inland water-way that extends from the southern end of Vancouver Island southwards to the bottom of Puget Sound, as well as the geological processes that led to the Sea’s current configuration. An entire chapter, one that I found particularly tasty, is devoted to the explorers of the region, with most space given to the many individuals— British, Canadian, and from the United States—who collected the region’s fishes. A separate chapter provides pithy biographical sketches of the many biologists worldwide who described these fishes. There follows an essay on the distribution of fishes within the Salish Sea and a species-byspecies table denoting where within the Sea each species has been recorded. The first volume continues with a pictorial dichotomous key to each family, a glossary, references, and ends with two indices, one biographical and the other of fish scientific and common names. Volumes two and three contain the family and species accounts and those remarkable illustrations. Each family overview, some perilously close to exhaustive, certainly provides a lot of material and covers not only the salient physical characteristics of each family but also a bit of its biology, evolution, and economic importance worldwide. When more than a handful of species within a family are presented, there follows a dichotomous key to species. I tried a number of these keys with specimens in hand and they work well. Each species account provides the following: Previous Scientific Names, Common Names, Recognition [i.e., most important diagnostic characters]; Description [including, but not limited to, morphometrics, meristics, and color], Size, Distribution, Habitat and Life History, Etymology [of the scientific name], and Key References. From a close reading, it is clear that a great deal of effort went into these accounts. As an example, the authors note that, far from accepting previously published data, they personally counted fin elements and gill rakers on all species—and greater love hath no fish biologists. The text in these sections is clear, concise, and, to the extent that descriptions of anal fins, for instance, can be rendered, interesting to read. Volumes two and three conclude with page-sized versions of each of the smaller-format Tomelleri renderings. These latter are suitable, I suppose, for framing and placing on the walls of your sad little cubicles. I particularly liked the occasional dip into candor. For instance, when discussing what common names they selected, the authors admit that while they mostly relied on the American Fisheries Society (AFS) Common and Scientific Names of Fishes, they also occasionally went off the AFS tracks ‘‘because we like the sound of our choices a bit better.’’ Is there anything that might be improved? As a reviewer, one has to be careful about what to bring up as there can be a fine line between trying to be helpful to readers and authors on the one hand and participating in some sort of literary blood sport on the other. Suffice it to say that there is very little of substance that can be faulted. I have a different take on some of the systematics presented here. But that is the product of honest differences of opinions among honest researchers. In addition, I would opine that a few of the renderings could be tweaked just a little. For instance, it might be argued that the White Croaker (Genyonemus lineatus) appears a bit too slim and athletic and the Jack Mackerel (Trachurus symmetricus) looks a bit jaundiced. I did find that an instance where eminently readable style—certainly a strong point throughout these volumes— was something of a detriment. This occurred when comparing the meristics of various species with those values in other published sources. This turned out to be a somewhat laborious process, as these values are embedded in the middle of a typically long Description paragraph. As an example, if we wanted to know the number of dorsal spines and rays in the two dorsal fins of Bathyagonus infraspinatus it is necessary to traverse 19 lines of dense text to find (p. 757) ‘‘two well-separated, short-based dorsal fins: first with five to eight spines, second with five to eight soft rays. . .’’ In addition, because the text seems to follow the Associated Press Stylebook when writing numbers (spelling out 0–9, and numerals thereafter), the information is not telegraphed to