422 ' HISTOEY OF ZOOLOGY. 



being immediately at the time of which we speak ; nor till the evil 

 had grown to a more inconvenient magnitude. 



Period of Accumulation of Materials. Exotic Collections. The 

 fishes of Europe were for some time the principal objects of study; 

 but those of distant regions soon came into notice. 4 In the seven- 

 teenth century the Dutch conquered Brazil, and George Margrave, 

 employed by them, described the natural productions of the country, 

 and especially the fishes. Bontius, in like manner, described some of 

 those of Batavia. Thus these writers correspond to Rumphius and 

 liheede in the history of botany. Many others might be mentioned ; 

 but we must hasten tc the formation of systems, which is our main 

 object of attention. 



Epoch of the Fixation of Characters. Ray and Willoughby. In 

 botany, as we have seen, though Ray was one of the first who invented 

 a connected system, he was preceded at a considerable interval by 

 Caesalpinus, who had given a genuine solution of the same problem. 

 It is not difficult to assign reasons why a sound classification should be 

 discovered for plants at an earlier period than for fishes. The vastly 

 greater number of the known species, and the facilities which belong 

 to the study of vegetables, give the botanist a great advantage ; and 

 there are numerical relations of a most definite kind (for instance, the 

 number of parts of the seed-vessel employed by Caesalpinus as one. of 

 the bases of his system), which are tolerably obvious in plants, but 

 which are not easily discovered in animals. And thus we find that in 

 ichthyology, Ray, with his pupil and friend Willoughby, appears as 

 the first founder of a tenable system. 5 



The first great division in this system is into cartilaginous and bony 

 fishes ; a primary division, which had been recognized by Aristotle, 

 and is retained by Cuvier in his latest labors. The subdivisions are 

 determined by the general form of the fish (as long or flat), by the 

 teeth, the presence or absence of ventral fins, the number of dorsal 

 fins, and the nature of the spines of the fins, as soft or prickly. Most 

 of these characters have preserved their importance in later systems ; 

 especially the last, which, under the terms malacopterygian and acan- 

 tlio-pterygian, holds a place in the best recent arrangements. 



* CUT. p. 43. 



6 Francisci Willoughbeii, Armigeri, de Hictoria Piscium, libri iv. jussu el 

 sumptibus Societatis Regise Londinensis editi, <fec. Totum opus recognovit, 

 ioaptavit, supplevit, lib rum etiara primuni et secundum adjecit Job. Raius 

 Oxford, 166S. 



