FISHES OF SOUTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 515 



THE FRESH-WATER FISHES OF SOUTH AND MIDDLE 



AMERICA 



By Professor CARL H. E1GENMANX 



INDIANA UNIVERSITY 



A. The salient features of the fish fauna of the Americas south 

 of the United States are : 



1. Great variety of fish life in the area between the Caribbean Sea 

 and the Argentine Republic. 



2. Paucity of ' types ' or families contributing to this variety. 



3. Paucity of the middle American fauna and its essentially South 

 American character except for 



4. the isolation of the fauna of the Mexican plateau. 



5. Paucity of the Pacific slope fauna and its essentially Atlantic 

 slope character. 



6. The ' marine ' character of the Titicacan fauna. 



7. The paucity of the Patagonian fauna and its essential difference 

 from the Brazilian fauna. 



8. The similarity of the tropical American to the tropical African 

 fauna. 



The first fresh-water fishes of South America were described by 

 Marcgrav in 1648. Additional accounts were given by Gronow, 1754 

 to 1756; Scopoli, 1777; Bloch, 1794; Lacepede, 1802; Bloch and 

 Schneider, 1807; Cuvier, 1817 to 1818. 



In 1817 the king of Bavaria sent Spix and Martius on an extended 

 trip to Brazil. Spix was working at the report on the fishes when he 

 died. The collection was turned over by Martius to Louis Agassiz, a 

 student of twenty-one at Munich. It had been nip and tuck between 

 Agassiz's desire to study natural history and his father's desire to have 

 his son study medicine. The commission to work up the Brazilian 

 fishes was surreptitiously undertaken by Agassiz and the results pub- 

 lished in a superb folio volume. This work, which tinctured the entire 

 later life of Louis Agassiz, was by far the most important contribution 

 to the fresh-water fishes of South America that had appeared. Agassiz's 

 desire to visit Brazil himself was not fulfilled until forty years later, 

 when, as the head of the Thayer expedition, he spent sixteen months in 

 Brazil with twelve assistants, devoting his time mainly to fresh-water 

 fishes. 



I was a student under Jordan when Mrs. Agassiz's ' Life and Letters 

 of Louis Agassiz ' appeared in 1885. Agassiz's account of his expedi- 

 tion to South America, coupled with the statement of Jordan that no 



