268 Count Lacepede on the Natural History of Fishes. 



Cold and mute, passing a great part of their life in inaccessible 

 depths, or exempt from those passionate movements which bring 

 quadrupeds so near ourselves, shewing nothing of that conjugal 

 tenderness which is admired in birds, nor of those labours so 

 varied and ingenious, which render the study of insects as im- 

 portant for general philosophy as for natural history, the fishes 

 have scarcely any thing else to present to our curiosity than 

 forms and colours, whose descriptions necessarily follow the same 

 plan, and impress an inevitable monotony on the works which treat 

 of them. M. de Lacepede made great efforts to overcome this 

 difficulty, and often succeeded in doing so. All that he could 

 collect regarding the organisation of these animals, their habits, 

 the wars which the human species wages against them, and the 

 benefit which it derives from them, he has given in a pure and 

 elegant style ; he has even diffused a charm over his descrip- 

 tions of them, whenever the beauties, which have been imparted 

 to them in so high a degree, permitted their being presented to 

 the admiration of naturalists. And in fact, what can afford a 

 greater subject of admiration than those brilliant colours, that 

 glare of gold, steel, ruby, and emerald, profusely poured upon 

 beings which man is scarcely ever naturally to meet with, and 

 which are never almost seen in the obscure depths where they 

 are retained. But still words cannot have the same variety, nor 

 the same glow ; the art of painting itself is insufficient to repre- 

 sent all the magnificence of such scenes. 



At the same time, the difficulties of which we speak relate only 

 to form, and do not arise from the desire so natural to an author 

 who succeeds Buffon, to be read by people in general. There are 

 others more intrinsic, and of which the naturalist alone can form 

 an idea. Before writing his first page on any class of animals 

 whatever, the naturalist, who would merit the name, must have 

 collected as many species as possible, must have compared them 

 both with regard to their internal structure and external appear- 

 ance, must have grouped them according to their general cha- 

 racters, extricated them from the confused, incomplete and 

 often contradictory articles of his predecessors, and referred to 

 them the observations, still more confused and obscure, of tra- 

 vellers, for the most part ignorant or superstitious, and yet the 

 only witnesses who have seen these animals in their native cli- 



