niPPOLITO SALVIANI. 21 



dltv ; the mode in ^vllic■ll tliey are captured, the time 

 they are most in season, and many other details. 

 What is most to be regretted in this mass of 

 valuable information is, that the author never sus- 

 pected that the nomenclature he employed would 

 become obsolete and obscure, a defect common to 

 all the ancient Naturalists, and which almost com- 

 pels us to do little more than guess at much, and 

 remain ignorant of the rest. Pliny's list of aquatic 

 animals amounts to 174; but Avhen we subtract 

 the shell -fish, the cete or whales, and the other 

 animals which are not true fish, there will not 

 remain above 95 or 96, some of w hich are probably 

 only duplicates of the others : about 30 of them 

 appear to be difi*erent from those mentioned by 

 Aristotle. 



Upon a careful examination of all the works of 

 the first epoch which remain, it would appear that 

 the ancients had recognized and named about 150 

 kinds of fish, which amounted to nearly the whole 

 of those which are used in the Mediterranean as 

 articles of food ; but they had not fixed precisely 

 their characters, nor had they established any me,- 

 thodical arrangement, so that they themselves were 

 often perplexed in endeavouring to identify them. 

 After the time of Aristotle, no one had engaged in 

 the investigation of their structure ; such inquiries 

 ceasing with the Peripatetic school. The Barba-r. 

 rians added nothing. And the nine succeeding 

 centuries were not more favourable ; the Monks not 

 occupying themselves with observations, and even 



