PREFACE. 



This Catalogue contains a description of all the species of Fish in 

 the Collection of the British Museum, and of the species which are 

 known to exist in other Museums, but which are desiderata in the 

 National Collection, and therefore most desirable to be procured. 



Most of the new and more interesting species have been figiu'ed. 

 Descriptions of the skeleton of many of the specimens have been 

 added. 



Dr. Giinther gives the following observations as to the method 

 followed in its formation : — " This volume of the Catalogue contains 

 the greater portion of Cuvier's Percoides, Scimwides, Sparoides, and 

 Mcenides, with many other genera which, I believe, ought to be asso- 

 ciated with them. There is no ichthyologist of the present day, who, 

 looking at the great number of new forms discovered since Cuvier's 

 period, would not think it advisable to subdivide some of the families 

 adopted in the ' Regne Animal,' and subsequently in the ' Histoire 

 Naturelle des Poissons ' (as indeed was suggested by Cuvier him- 

 self), and to employ a part only of the characters assigned by him 

 to the different families. Further, when genera and even species 

 are known, in which the absence or presence of vomerine teeth is 

 not constant, this character can no longer stand as distinctive of two 

 large families like Cuvier's Percoides and Sdcenoides. The same is 

 the case with the character of a smooth or serrated praeopercular 

 edge. Instead of those characters has been substituted that of the 

 relative development of the dorsal and anal fins. Thus, several 

 portions of the Percoides of Cu\'ier have been separated, and form 

 together with some of his Scicetwides and Sparoides, and with the 

 Mcenides, families of themselves. 



" This Catalogue comprises aU the species, descriptions of which 

 have been published in works accessible to me. The number of 

 knowTi species having been considerably increased in the last thirty 

 yeai-s, and the descriptions of the new species being scattered thi'ouoh 



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