Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/50

26 threw a new light on the affinities of Fishes. The author who had the good fortune of examining this fish, was enabled to show that, on the one hand, it was a form most closely allied to Lepidosiren; on the other, that it could not be separated from the Ganoid fishes, and therefore that also Lepidosiren was a Ganoid: a relation pointed at already by Huxley in a previous paper on "Devonian Fishes." This discovery led to further considerations of the relative characters of Müller's sub-classes, and to the system which is followed in the present work.

Having followed the development of the ichthyological system down to the latest time, we have to retrace our steps to enumerate the most important contributions to Ichthyology which appeared contemporaneously with or subsequently to the publication of Cuvier and Valenciennes's great work. As in other branches of Zoology, activity increased almost with every year; and for convenience's sake we may arrange these works in three rubrics.

1. "Voyage autour du monde sur les Corvettes de S. M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, sous le commandement de M. Freycinet. Zoologie: Poissons par Quoy et Gaimard." (Paris, 1824, 4to, atlas fol.)

2. "Voyage de la Coquille. Zoologie par Lesson." (Paris, 1826-30, 4to, atlas fol.)

3. "Voyage de I'Astrolabe, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d'Urville. Poissons par Quoy et Gaimard." (Paris, 1834, 8vo, atlas fol.)