HISTORY OF THE WORKS OF CUVIER. 149 



but till combinations of organs arc not possible. For example, a stomach of one 

 of the ca;v?»"ora necessarily supposes incisive tcetli for rending its prey, movable 

 toes for seizing it, &c. ; for alike reason, animals with hoofs are, of necessity, all 

 herbivorous, because their inmiovable toes would not allow of their seizing a liv- 

 ing prey — their molar teeth, with a flat crown, could not tear it, &c. There is a 

 necessary harmony, therefore, which regulates the combination of organs ; there 

 are such as exclude one another, such as necessitate one another, so that all com- 

 binations are not possible ; and it necessarily follows, if onl\' from the i'act that 

 all combinations of organs are not possible, that there must be certain gaps, cer- 

 tain chasms between the possible combinations and the impossible, or between 

 different groups of creatures ; and that this sort of hiatus is determined by the 

 laws or conditions under which these creatures exist. 



The first edition of the Ilegne anintal (which itself succeeded the Tableau 

 eUmentaire dc Vhistoirc naturclle (ks animaux, wherein the first germs of Cuviei-'s 

 ideas on classification had been developed) occupied but four volumes, the second 

 five J of which the last two, relating to the crustaceans, i\\Q. arachnids, and the 

 insects, were the work of M. Latreille, who, as M. Cuvier himself pronounced, 

 had, "of all the men of Europe, studied those animals the most profoundly." 

 It may well be supposed that a work of the natm-e of that of which we speak, a 

 work which, on its appearance, became at once the guide of all zoologists, would 

 be translated into all languages. It Avas so, in effect, into English, by IM. Grif- 

 fith J into Italian, by the Abbe Ranzani ; and into German, by M. Schinz. 



III. NATURAL HISTOliY OF FISHES.* 



This work may be considered under two distinct relations : under that of tlie 

 great nvmiber of new species with which it has enriched zoology, and under that 

 of the application which the author has therein made of the empiriccd laws of 

 method to a definite class of the animal kingdom. I shall say but a few words 

 on the work considered under the former point of view, which would adapt itself 

 but little to the philosophical studies which I have in hand. 



Aristotle knew and named 117 kinds of fish ; Pliny knew l)ut 95 or 96 ; Oppian 

 names 125 ; Athenfeus, 130 ; ^lian, 110 ; Ausonius names for the first time the 

 salmon-ti'out, the common trout, the barbel and some other fresh-water fishes. 

 In all, the ancients had distinguished and named 150 species of fish ; only about 

 40, therefore, had escaped the research of Aristotle; and, as regards the structure 

 of these animals, nothing was added to what he had said. In the middle of the 

 16th century llondelet, Belon, and Salviani make their appearance ; the three 

 original authors who founded ichthijology. Belon describes and names about 130 

 fishes; Salviani, 99 ; Rondelet, 244, of which 197 belong to the sea and 47 to 

 fresh water. Neglecting some secondary authors, if we come to Ilay and Wil- 

 loughby, we find the number of known fishes already more than 400 ; the same 

 is nearly the case with Artedi and Linna3us ; there are about 1,400 in Bloch and 

 Lacepede ; there are nearly 5,000 in the work of M. Cuvier. * * * * 

 But to come at once to the phil()so])hical part of the work under consideration, 

 we proceed to the distribution of species, or rather to the views which have guided 

 the author in that distril)ution. Aristotle had recognized that the true characters 

 of fishes consist in the branchia; (gills) and in the Jiiis. The class of fishes is 

 comi)osed, therefore, of vertebrate animals with these appendages ; the features 

 connnon to all being the vertebrcc, or, more exactly, an internal sheleton, (for 

 the vertebra? do not alone compose that skeleton,) the branchice and the./w.9. 

 The differential features are an osseous or a eartilat/inous skeleton ; gills, now 

 free, now fixed; fins, sojl or sxnnous; ventral fins placed by turns before, behind, 



* The first voIiiiih^ fippciircd in 1828 ; 8 of the 20 volumes, wliich the work was inteuded to 

 comprise, were ]iul)lislicd before Cuvier's deatli, aud several others have since made iheir 

 appearance through the caro of M. Valenciennes, the coadjutor of Cuvier for the entire work. 



