Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/40

16 multiplied; and the figures with which the work is illustrated are far inferior to those of Bloch. Thus the influence of Lacépède on the progress of Ichthyology was infinitely less than that of his fellow-labourer; and the labour caused to his successors by correcting the numerous errors into which he has fallen, probably outweighs the assistance which they derived from his work.

The work of the principal cultivators of Ichthyology in the period between Ray and Lacépède was chiefly systematic and descriptive, but also the internal organisation of fishes received attention from more than one great anatomist. Haller, Camper, and Hunter, examined the nervous system and organs of sense; and more especially Alexander Monro (the son) published a classical work, "The Structure and Physiology of Fishes explained and compared with those of Man and other Animals" (Edinb. 1785, fol.) The electric organs of fishes (Torpedo and Gymnotus) were examined by Réaumur, Allamand, Bancroft, Walsh, and still more exactly by J. Hunter. The mystery of the propagation of the Eel called forth a large number of essays, and even the artificial propagation of Salmonidæ was known and practised by Gleditsch (1764).

Bloch and Lacépède's works were almost immediately succeeded by the labours of Cuvier, but his early publications were of necessity tentative, preliminary, and fragmentary, so that a short period elapsed before the spirit infused by this great anatomist into Ichthyology could exercise its influence on all workers in this field. Several of such antecuvierian works must be mentioned on account of their importance to our knowledge of certain Faunas: the "Descriptions and Figures of Two Hundred Fishes collected at Vizagapatam on the coast of Coromandel" (Lond. 1803; 2 vols. in fol.), by Patrick Russel; and "An Account of the Fishes found in the River Ganges and its branches" (Edinb. 1822; 2 vols. in