Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/651

633 LITERATURE.] capterygii, Decapterygii, &amp;lt;fec. We need not add that an artificial method like this led to the most unnatural com binations and distinctions. Bloch s Naturgeschichte remained for many years the standard work, and, with its great number of excellent illustrations, proved a most useful guide to the student. But as regards originality of thought Bloch was far sur- I -pede. passed by his contemporary, B. G. E. de Lacepede, born at Agen, in France, in 1756, a man of great and general erudition, who became professor at the museum of natural history in Paris, where he died in 1826. Laccpede had to contend with greit difficulties in the preparation of his Histoire des Poissons, Paris, 1798-1803, 5 vols., which was written during the most disturbed period of the French Revolution. A great part of it was composed whilst the author was separated from collections and books, and had to rely on his notes and manuscripts only. Even the works of Bloch and other contemporaneous authors remained unknown, or at least inaccessible, to him for a long time. We need not therefore be surprised that his work abounds in the kind of errors into which a compiler is liable to fall. Not only does the same species appear under two or more distinct specific names, but it sometimes happens that the author so little understands the source from which he derives his information that the description is referred to one genus and the accompanying figure to another. The names of genera are unduly multiplied; and the figures with which the work is illustrated are far inferior to those of Bloch. Thus the influence of Lace&quot;pede on the progress of ichthyology was vastly less than that of his fellow-labourer ; and the labour laid on his succes sors in correcting the numerous errors into which he had fallen probably outweighed the assistance which they de rived from his work. The work of the principal cultivators of ichthyology in the period between Ray and Lacepede was chiefly systematizing and describing; but the internal organization of fishes also received attention from more than one great anat miist. Haller, Camper, and Hunter examined the nervous system and the organs of sense ; and above all Alexander Monro, secundus, published a classical work, The Structure and Physiology of Fishes explained and compared with those of Man and other Animals, Edin., 1785. The electric organs of fishes (Torpedo and Gymno- tus) were examined by Reaumur, 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 Salmonidcv was known arid practised by Gleditsch (1764). Bloch and Lacepede s works were almost immediately succeeded by the labours of Cuvier, but his early publi cations were of necessity tentative, preliminary, and frag mentary, so that some little time elapsed before the spirit infused into ichthyology by this great anatomist could exer cise its influence on all the workers in this field. Several of suchante-Cuvieri in 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 Coromandei, Lond., 1803, 2 vols., by Patrick Russel, and An Account of the Fishes found in the River Ganges and its Branches, Edin., 1822, 2 vols., by F. Hamilton (formerly Buchanan), were works distinguished by greater accuracy of the drawings (especially the latter) than was ever attained before. A Natural History of Jlritish Fishes was published by E. Donovan, Lond., 1802-8; and the Mediterranean fauna formed the study of the lifetime of A. Risso (Ichthyologie de Nice, Paris, 1810; and Histoire naturelle de V Europe Meridionale, Paris, 1827). A slight beginning in the description of the fishes of the United States was made 633 by S. L. Mitchell, who published, besides various papers, a Memoir on the Ichthyology of New York, in 1815. G. Cuvier (17G9-1832) did not occupy himself with the Cuvier. study of fishes merely because the class formed part of the Regne Animal, but devoted himself to it with particular predilection. The investigation ot their anatomy, and especially of their skeleton, was taken up by him at an early period, and continued until he had succeeded in com pleting so perfect a framework of the system of the whole class that his immediate successors required only to fill up those details for which their master had had no leisure. Indefatigable in examining all the external and internal characters of the fishes in a rich collection, he ascertained the natural affinities of the infinite variety of forms, and accurately defined the divisions, orders, families, and genera of the class, as they appear in the various editions of the Regne Animal. His industry equalled his genius : he formed connexions with almost every accessible part of the globe ; not only French travellers and natu ralists, but also Germans, Englishmen, Americans, rivalled one another in assisting him with collections; and for many years the museum of the Jardin des Plantes was the centre where all ichthyological treasures were deposited. Thus Cuvier brought together a collection the like of which had never been seen before, and which, as it contains all the materials on which his labours were based, must still be considered as the most important. Soon after the year 1820, Cuvier, assisted by one of his pupils, A. Valenciennes, Valen-; commenced his great work on fishes, Histoire naturelle des ciennes. Poissons, of which the first volume appeared in 1828. The earlier volumes, in which Cuvier himself took his share, bear evidence of the enthusiasm with which both authors devoted themselves to their task. After Cuvier s death in 1832, the work was left entirely in the hands of Valen ciennes, whose energy and interest gradually slackened, rising to their former pitch in some parts only, as, for instance, in the treatise on the herring. He left the work unfinished with the twenty-second volume (1848), which treats of the Salmonoids. Yet, incomplete as it is, it is indispensable to the student. The system finally adopted by Cuvier is the following : A. POISSONS OSSEUX. I. A BllANCHIES EN PEIGNES OU EN LAMES. 1. A Mdchoire Supericurc Libre. a. Acanthopterygicns. Percoides. Sparoides. Branebies labyrmtliiques-. Polynemes. Cbetodonoides. Lophioides. Mulles. Seomberoides. Gobioides. Jones cnirassees. Muges. Labroides. Scienoides. b. Malacoptlrygicns. Abdominaiix. Subbrachicns. Apodcs. Cyprinoides. Siluroides. Salmonoides. Clupeoides. Lucioides. Gadoidcs. Pleuronectes. LMseoboles. Murenoides. 2. A Mdchoire Suptrieurc Fixie. Sclerodennes, Gymnodontes. II. A BllANCHIES EN FOKME DE HOUPPES. Lophobrancb.es. B. CAUTILAGINEUX OU CHONDROPT^RYGIENS. Stuiioniens. Plagiostomes. Cyclostomes. We have only to compare this system with that of Linnaeus if we wish to measure the gigantic stride made by ichthy ology during the intervening period of seventy years. The various characters employed for classification have been examined throughout the whole class, and their relative importance has been duly weighed and understood. Though Linnaeus had formed a category of &quot; Amphibia Nantes &quot; for fishes with a cartilaginous skeleton, which should coincide with Cuvier s &quot; Poissons Cartilagineux,&quot; XII. 80