22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



WiLLOUGHBY AND Kay's SySTEM. 



11. Book — cetaceous fishes. 



III. Book — concerning cartilaginous fishes. This is divided into 



three sections. 



IV. Book — concerning oviparous fishes which have spines. This 



is divided into five sections. 



Ray, in 1113, published an improvement on this system in a 

 work entitled "A Synopsis of Fishes." 



A classification by Samuel Dale, was published in 1739, who 

 made several improvements upon former arrangements, showing 

 that there had been some advance in the science. He based his 

 method upon the respiratory organs, dividing them into two grand 

 classes. 



Dale's System. 



Class I. — Fishes breathing by gills [Branchiis respirantes,) and 

 having but one ventricle to the heart. This class 

 was divided into two orders, viz : 

 I. — Oviparous. 

 II. — Viviparous. 

 These orders were sub-divided into families, genera and 

 species. 



Class II. — Fishes breathing by lungs [Pulmone resjnrantes,) and 

 having two ventricles to the heart as the whales. 



About the same time, Linneus, who had collected the manuscripts 

 and writings of his deceased friend, Artedi, published two volumes 

 entitled Philosophia Ichthyologice , (Philosophy of Ichthyology.) 



Artedi was a true and thorough naturalist for that day. He had 

 confined his researches to the natural history of fishes with indefat- 

 igable zeal. 



lie had systematized and arranged the classification of the sci- 

 ence in accordance with the advice of Linneus — established new 

 genera, gave rules for their formation and descriptions, assigned to 

 them their proper limits, and gave the methods of separating differ- 

 ent species, so as to render their descriptions clear and simple. 

 So correct was he in the description and distribution of genera, that 

 many of those he established are still retained in the nomenclature 

 of the science on his authority to the present day. 



