258 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 



OF THE LATE 



CAPTAIN DUGALD CARMICHAEL, F. L. S. 



By the Rev. Colin Smith, Minister of Inverary. 



[Continued from page 59 of the present Volume.] 



In the year 1807, Capt. Carmichael volunteered to accom- 

 pany a detachment which was sent to Algoa Bay, a remote 

 and then " httle known outpost," to the south of the Cape; 

 in order tliat he might have the opportunity of comparing 

 its productions with those of the latter station. It was in 

 this district that he turned his attention to Icthyology; and 

 he has left drawings and descriptions of many fishes, found 

 not only there, but in other parts of the coast of Africa and 

 in Asia, which, after having carefully compared witli those 

 described bv Shaw, and in other works which treated on that 

 subject, he hesitated not to consider new. It has not, how- 

 ever, been deemed advisable to load the present memoir with 

 the details of these, since many of them are now published 

 in the more recent volumes of Zoological authors. It is but 

 justice to remark, that these descriptions are drawn up with 

 great care ; and his anxiety to illustrate this obscure branch 

 of Natural History, is well exemplified in the following passage 

 from one of the pages in his journal. 



" The bays of Southern Africa are well stocked with fish, 

 many of which are of large size and excellent quality. Cape- 

 town is abundantly supplied from Table Bay, by boats which 

 go out early in the morning, and return before the hour of 

 dinner. To pass some part of my idle time, I took sketches 

 in pencil of all the species that are caught in that ba}^ and 

 exposed for sale in the market. They appear to be almost 

 entirely unknown to Naturalists, so far at least as I could judge 

 from looking over Shaw's Icthyology, in which there are only 

 three species of them described. I traced the outlines with 



