Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/37

Rh examination and study of the fauna of their native countries, others proceeded on voyages of discovery to foreign and distant countries. Of these latter the following may be specially mentioned:— O. Fabricius worked out the Fauna of Greenland, Kalm collected in North America, Hasselquist in Egypt and Palestine, Brünnich in the Mediterranean, Osbeck in Java and China, Thunberg in Japan; Forskål examined and described the fishes of the Red Sea; Stellar, Pallas, S. T. Gmelin, and Güldenstedt traversed nearly the whole of the Russian Empire in Europe and Asia. Others attached themselves as naturalists to the celebrated circumnavigators of the last century, like the two Forsters (father and son), and Solander, who accompanied Cook; Commerson, who travelled with Bougainville; and Sonnerat. Numerous new and startling forms were discovered by those men, and the foundation was laid of the knowledge of the geographical distribution of animals.

Of those who studied the fishes of their native country the most celebrated are Pennant (Great Britain), O. F. Müller (Denmark), Duhamel (France), Meidinger (Austria), Cornide (Spain), Parra (Cuba).

The materials brought together by those and other zoologists were so numerous that, not long after the death of Linnæus, the necessity was felt of collecting them in a compendious form. Several compilators undertook this task; they embodied the recent discoveries in new editions of Artedi's and Linné's classical works, but not possessing either a knowledge of the subject or any critical discernment, they only succeeded in covering those noble monuments under a mass of confused rubbish. For Ichthyology it was fortunate that two men at least, Bloch and Lacépède, made it a subject of long and original research.

, born in the year 1723 at Anspach in Germany, practised as a physician in Berlin; he had reached