SCIENTIFIC SUKVEY. • 25 



diverse form and characteristics were brought into the same order, 

 as the eel and the sword fish for instance, individuals having but 

 few properties similar or in common. He omitted the cetaceous 

 tribe (whales, &c.,) altogether from the arrangement; placing 

 them, inasmuch as they breathed air with lungs, among the mam- 

 malia. 



The assertion from such high authority that a whale was not a 

 fish, made some stir at the time, but its correctness has long since 

 been established. 



Ichthyology now began to be pursued as a well founded science, 

 and, as a pursuit, contributing largely by the researches and dis- 

 coveries of its followers, indirectly at least, to the comfort and 

 wealth of the people by its suggestive aids to the practical econo- 

 my and wants of mankind. 



Fisheries began to be established more understandingly and to 

 better advantage as a branch of national industry, than they had 

 hitherto been, and that too in proportion as the knowledge of the 

 habits and instincts of fishes became better known and more widely 

 disseminated. Other writers upon this subject appeared from time 

 to time, some of whom adopted the classification of Linneus wholly, 

 and some only in part,* but his system kept the ascendancy until 

 Cuvier, the celebrated French comparative Anatomist and Natur- 

 alist introduced his method, based in part upon differences of ana- 

 tomical structure. 



Cuvier's System. 



He divided, as did Belon, all fishes into two great divisions, viz : 



those whose skeletons were made up entirely of bone which he 



called Osseous fishes : The other included those whose skeleton or 



frame work instead of being composed of bone was principally made 



* Among them, Gronovius, a contemporary and friend of Linneus, published his 

 work {Museum Ichthyologicum,) a few years before the latter had made public his 

 system. He adopted Artedi's two natural orders of fishes with horizontal tails and 

 those with tails in a perpendicular position, while his other characters were derived 

 from those of Ray and Linneus. Brunich, in 1771, published a work on the " Prin- 

 ciples of Zoology" {Zoologia Fundamenta,) in which he united as far as he could, 

 the natural system of Ray with the artificial system of Linneus. Prof. Gowan fol- 

 lowed, adopting Brunich's method. Scopoli, in a work published in 1777, adopted 

 a new method which was never followed. Bloch, in 1785, published a work with 

 excellent plates. It was written in French and German. He followed the Linnean 

 system. Bonnaterre, who wrote the article on Ichthyology, in that great work, the 

 Encyclopedie Methodique, in 1788, also adopted Linneus' method. 



