OF BARON CCVIER. 15 



Indies, are passed in review ; incidental notices in voyages 

 and travels, topographical histories ', narratives of tourists, 

 the researches of political economists, whenever they touch 

 upon ichthyology, are carefully examined. But no writers 

 receive a more marked and just consideration, than those who 

 in recent times have endeavoured to improve the science of 

 ichthyology. The posthumous system of Bloch edited by 

 Schneider, Walbaum, Gmelin, Lacepede, Dumeril, Blain- 

 ville, Lesueur, Goldfuss, Midler, Risso, Rafmesque, Leach, 

 Hamilton, Buchanan, and Shaw, are noticed, although the 

 last named was scarcely more than a compiler; and Oken, 

 the celebrated champion of idealistic philosophy, whose pro- 

 blematic attempts to deduce a priori from the general idea 

 of being all the diversities of particular beings, by means of 

 combinations of ideas of different degrees, is likewise subject 

 to examination, on the ground of the general idea of fish 

 leading, according to his method, to that of all kinds of fish ; 

 and so descending by successive gradations, as to form at 

 length a kind of system ; a system, by the way, which has 

 already varied three or four times in the philosopher's pro- 

 ductions. 



Further on we find anatomists, particularly those who have 

 of late made researches on the air-bladder, and the osteology 

 of the heads of fish. Autenrieth, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Rosen- 

 thal, Spix, Bojanus, Carus, Schultz, Vander Haeven, Bakker, 

 Meckel, Serres, Majendie, Kuhl, Apostole-Arsaki, Rathke, Sir 



1 In a note many of our county historians are enumerated ; Wallace, 

 Leigh, Morton, Coker, Taylor, Dale, Plott, who have furnished what 

 they were pleased to designate as natural history, although their descrip- 

 tions are almost invariably in arrear of the science, such as it was when 

 they wrote ; even Borlace and Wallis are considered as not being wholly 

 exempted from this reproach - 7 nor is this a wonder, when for half a cen- 

 tury after Ray and Willughby published their labours, Englishmen, 

 professed naturalists, appear hot to have known them, and the erudition 

 of Pennant contributed more to his fame abroad than at home. 



