402 The History of Ichthyology 



slight differences has filled his book with nominal species. Thus 

 among the living ganoid fishes he recognizes 135 species, the 

 actual number being not far from 40. 



We may anticipate the sequence of time by here referring 

 to the remaining attempts at a record of all the fishes in the 

 world. Dr. Albert C. L. G. Giinther, a naturalist of German 

 birth, but resident in London for many years, long the honored 

 keeper of the British Museum, published in eight volumes the 

 "Catalogue of the Fishes of the British Museum," from 1859 to 

 1870. In this monumental work, the one work most essential 

 to all systematic study of fishes, 6843 species are described and 

 1682 doubtful species are mentioned. The book is a remark- 

 able example of patient industry. Its great merits are at once 

 apparent, and those of us engaged in the same line of study 

 may pass by its faults with the leniency which we may hope 

 that posterity may bestow on ours. 



The publication of this work gave an immediate impetus to 

 the study of fishes. The number of known species has been 

 raised from 9000 to about 12,000 in the last thirty years, although 

 meanwhile some hundreds of species even accepted by the con- 

 servatism of Giinther have been erased from the system. 



A new edition of this work has been long in contemplation, 

 and in 1898 the first volume of it, covering the percoid fishes, 

 was published by Dr. George Albert Boulenger. This volume 

 is one of the most satisfactory in the history of ichthyology. 

 It is based on ample material. Its accepted species have been 

 subject to thorough criticism and in its classification every 

 use has been made of the teachings of morphology and espe- 

 cially of osteology. Its classification is distinctly modern, and 

 with the writings of the contemporary ichthyologists of Europe 

 and America, it is fully representative of the scientific era 

 ushered in by the researches of Darwin. The chief criticism 

 which one may apply to this work concerns most of the publi- 

 cations of the British Museum. It is the frequent assumption 

 that those species not found in the greatest museum of the 

 world do not really exist at all. There are still many forms 

 of life, very many, outside the series gathered in any or all 

 collections. 



We may now turn from the universal catalogues to the 



