Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/653

635 LITERATURE.] ICHTHYOLOGY 635 Ssterreichischen Monarchic, Leips., 1858. 2, C. T. E. Siebold, Die Siisswasser-fische von Mittclcuropa, Leips., 1863. E. ftaly and Mediterranean. 1. Bonaparte, Iconografia delta Fauna Ralica, torn, iii., &quot;Pesci,&quot; Rome, 1832-41. 2. Costa, Fauna del Rc jao di Napoli, &quot;Pesci,&quot; Naples, about 1850. F. France. 1. E. Blanchard, Lcs Poissons des caux donees de la France, Paris, 1866. G. Spanish Peninsula. The freshwater fish fauna of Spain and Portugal was almost unknown, until F. Steindachner paid some visits to those countries for the purpose of exploring the prin cipal rivers. His discoveries are described in several papers in the Sitzungsberichte der Akademie zu Wicn. B. du Bocage and F. Capello made contributions to our knowledge of the marine fishes on the coast of Portugal (Jorn. Scienc. Acad. Lisb.}. II. North America. 1. J. Richardson, Fauna Borcali-Americana, part iii., &quot;Fishes,&quot; Lond., 1836. The species described in this work are nearly all from the British possessions in the north. 2. Dekay, Zoology of New York, part iv. , &quot;Fishes,&quot; New York, 1842. 3. &quot;Re ports of the Un ited States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 5 vols. , Washington, 1873-79, contain much valuable information. Besides these works, numerous descriptions of North American freshwater fishes have been published in the reports of the various TJ. S. Govern ment expeditions, and in North American scientific journals, by Storer, Baird, Girard, W. 0. Ayres, Cope, Jordan, Brown Goode, &c., but a good general, and especially critical, account of the fishes of the United States is still a desideratum. I. Japan. 1. Fauna Japonica, &quot;Poissons,&quot; par II. Schlegel, Ley den, 1850. J. East Indies ; Tropical parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 1. E. Riippell, Atlas zu der Reise im Nordlichcn AfriJca, Frankf., 1828. 2. E. Riippell, Neue IVirbelthicrc, &quot; Fische,&quot; Frankf., 1837. 3. R, L. Playfair and A. Giinther, The Fishes of Zanzibar, Lonl., 1876. 4. C. B. Klunzinger, Si/nopsis dcr Fische des Rothen Mccrs, Vienna, 1870-71. 5. F. Day, The Fishes of India, Lond., 1865, 4to, contains an account of the freshwater and marine species. 6. A. Giinther, Die Fische der Sildsce, Hamburg, 4to, from 1873 (in progress). 7. Unsurpassed in activity, as regards the exploration of the fish fauna of the East Indian archipelago, is P. Bleeker (1819-78), a surgeon in the service of the Dutch East Indian Government, who, from the year 1840, for nearly thirty years, amassed immense collections of the fishes of the various islands, and described them in extremely numerous papers, published chiefly in the journals of the Batavian Society. Soon after his return to Europe (1800) Bleeker commenced to collect the final results of his labours in a grand work, illustrated by coloured plates, Atlas Ich- thyolo jlqnedcs Indes Orientales Neerlandaiscs, Amsterd. , fol. , 1862; the publication of which was interrupted by the author s death in 1878. K. Africa. 1. A. Giinther, &quot; The Fishes of the Nile,&quot; in Pethe- rick s Travels in Central Africa, Lond., 1S69. 2. W. Peters, Natiirwisscnschaflliclie Rcise nach Mossambique, iv., &quot;Flussfische,&quot; Berl., 1&amp;gt;68, 4to. L. West Indies and South America. 1. L. Agassiz, Sclccta genera ct species Piscium, quce in itinere per Brasiliam collcgit J. B. de Spix, Munich, 1829, fol. 2. F. de Castelnau, Animauxnou- vcaux on rarcs, / ecucillis pcndantT expedition dans les par ties centr ales de TAmeriquedu Slid, &quot; Poissons,&quot; Paris, 1855. 3. L. Vaillantand F. Bocourt, Mission scicntifique au Mcxiquc ct dans VAmerique cen- trale, &quot;Poissons,&quot; Paris, 1874. 4. F. Poey, the celebrated naturalist of Havana, devoted many years of study to the fishes of Cuba. His papers and memoirs are published partly in two periodicals, issued by himself, under the title of Memorial* sobre la Historia natural de la Isla dc Cuba (from 1851), and Repcrtorio Fisico -natural de la Ma de Cuba (from 1865), partly in North American scientific journals. And, finally, F. Steindachner and A. Giinther have pub lished many contributions, accompanied by excellent figures, to our knowledge of the fishes of Central and South America. M. New Zealand. I. F. W. Hutton and J. Hector, Fishes of New Zealand, Wellington, 1872. N. Arctic Regions. 1. C. Liitken, &quot; A Revised Catalogue of the Fishes of Greenland,&quot; in Manual of the Natural History, Geology, and Physics of Greenland, Loud., 1875, 8vo. 2. The fishes of Spitzbergen were examined by A. J. Malmgrcn (1865). III. ANATOMICAL WOKKS. The number of authors who have investigated the anatomy of fisnes is almost as great as that of fauuists ; and we should go beyond the limits of the present article if we mentioned more than the most prominent and successful. M. H. Rathke, J. Miiller, J. Hyrtl, and H. Stannius left scarcely any organ uncxamined, and their researches had a direct bearing either on the relation of the class of fishes to the other vertebrates, or on the systematic arrangement of the fishes themselves. E. E. von Baer, F. de Filippi, C. Vogt, W. His, W. K. Parker, and F. M. Balfour investigated their embry- ,.!.,,.. . A IT&quot; :11 M 1/-1 T 1_ jjl 1 i i mi, i Stannius, L. de Sanctis, L. Sticda, Baudelot, and Miclucho-Maday; the organ of hearing by E. H. Weber, C. Basse, and G. Retzius. The electric fishes were examined by E. Geoffrey, C Matteuci, P. Pacini, T. Bilharz, and Max Schultze. The development and metamorphosis of the lamperns was made the subject of research by H. Miiller, M. Schultze, and P. Owsjannikow ; Mailer s exami nation of Branchiostoma was continued by J. Marcusen, A. Kova- levsky, L. Stieda, W. Miiller, C, Hasse, T. H. Huxley, and F. M. Balfour. The most comprehensive accounts of the anatomy of fishes are^contained in the subjoined works, which have been chiefly followed in the following anatomical description : 1. H. Stannius, Zootomie dcr Fische, 2d edit., Berl., 1854. 2. R. Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. i., Lond., 1866. 3. R. Owen, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the I crto br ate Animals, parti., &quot;Fishes,&quot; Lond., 1846. 4. T. H. Huxley, Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebratcd Animals, Lond., 1871. It has been mentioned above that the great work of Cuvier and Valenciennes had been left incomplete. Several authors, therefore, have supplied detailed accounts of the orders omitted in that work. Miiller and Henle published an account of the Plagiostomes, and Kaup of the Murcenidai and Lophobranchii ; while A. Dumeril com menced an Histoire naturelle des Poissons ou Ichtltyoloyie generale, of which, however, only two volumes appeared, containing a complete account of the Plagiostomes (Paris, 1865) and of the Ganoids and Lophobranchs (Paris, 1870). The activity which had prevailed in ichthyology since the publication of the Histoire naturelle by Cuvier and Valen ciennes had been so great, and the results of the numerous investigations were scattered over such a multitude of publications, that it ultimately became imperative to collect all these materials in one comprehensive work. This was done in the Catalogue of Fishes, published by the trustees of the British Museum, in eight volumes (Lond., 1859-70). Besides the species previously described, many new forms were added, the total number of species referred to in those volumes amounting to 8525. As regards the sys tematic arrangement, Miiller s. system was adopted in the main, but the definition of the families was much modified. This, however, need not be further entered on now, as it will become sufficiently apparent in the systematic portion of this article. For fuller details than can be given here regarding the structure, classification, and life-history of fishes, the reader is referred to the Introduction to the Study &amp;lt;&amp;gt;/ Fishes, by A. Giinther, Edin., 1880. EXTERNAL PARTS. In the body of a fish tour parts are distinguished, the head, trunk, tail, and fins; the boundary between the first and second is generally indicated by the gill-open ing, and that between the second and third by the vent. The form of the body and the relative proportions of these principal parts are subject to greater variation than is to be found in any other class of vertebrates. In fishes which are endowed with the power of steady and more or less rapid locomotion, a deviation from that form of body which we observe in a perch, carp, or mackerel is never excessive. The body is a simple, equally-formed wedge, compressed or slightly rounded, well fitted for cleaving the water. In fishes which are in the habit of moving on the bottom, the whole body, or at least the head, is vertically depressed and flattened ; and the latter may be so enor mously enlarged that the trunk and tail appear merely as an appendage. In one family of fishes, the PleitronechJce or flat-fishes, the body is compressed into a thin disk ; they swim and move on one side only, which remains constantly directed towards the bottom, a peculiarity by which the symmetry of all parts of the body has been affected. In fishes moving comparatively slowly through the water, and able to remain (as it were) suspended in it, a lateral compression of the body, in conjunction with a lengthen ing of the vertical and a shortening of the longitudinal