REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 175 



Smith's chief fountain of information was MitchilFs monograph, 

 ''The Fishes of New York described and arranged," published in 1815 

 in the Transactions of the Literar}' and Philosophical Societ}' of 

 New York. 



He evidently had, as a stand-by, John Stark's ''Elements of Natural 

 Histor}','"' published at Edinburgh in 1828, in which the classification 

 proposed 1)y Cuvier in the first edition of the "liegne Animal" (1817) 

 was followed. This served Smith as a guide for the arrangement of 

 his material. Although the second edition of the "Regne Animal" 

 (1820) had been translated and published in New York a couple of j^ears 

 before (1831), it was unknown to Smith. Another work he referred 

 to as ""the Conversations Lexicon;" it was the "Encyclopedia Ameri- 

 cana" of those days, which had then been very recently published. 



For the illustrations, he had a work long ago forgotten, but which 

 hnd a considerable circulation in its day. It was Strack's "Natur- 

 geschichte in Bildcrn mit erlauterndem Text." Of the fish part two 

 editions had been published at Diisseldorf— one in 1819-1826 and the 

 other in 1828-1831. This work was the source of most of the reduced 

 and ver}" poorl}' engraved woodcuts which accompany the text; three 

 were borrowed from Mitchill's "Fishes of New York." Such are the 

 facts, but in his preface Smith makes no mention of Strack's work 

 and leads up to the supposition that his cuts were original. His words 

 are, "With respect to the engravings, they are far short, in many 

 instances, of what was anticipated. Some of them are beautifully and 

 accurately executed, but others are miserable caricatures. The artist 

 was young and inexperienced, and when he would have willingly made 

 a second drawing the press could not be kept in waiting." 



He has certainly told the truth in the acknowledgment that the 

 en§p.'avings were "miserable caricatures." They are generall}^ very 

 poor copies of the originals. For example, Strack's figure of the fresh- 

 water lamprey represented correctly seven lateral branchial foramina; 

 Smith's copy onl}^ five! A few examples of the many kinds of errors 

 he committed may now be examined; to expose all would require a 

 volume as large as the one noticed. 



Under the caption " Gen. Scylliam'' three species are claimed for 

 Massachusetts, the sea-dog Sci/Uimh canicida (p. 80); the Scylliwn 

 ca.tulus (p. 81); and the dog-fish Squalus canis (p. 82). Now no species 

 of the genus ScyJUvm has ever been obtained from the coast waters of 

 Massachusetts, and the only sharks called sea-dog or dog-fish that could 

 hive been known to Smith were the picked dog-fish, Squalus acanthlas^ 

 and the smooth hound, Mustelus canis^ which last was not named by him. 



Gray mullets or mugilids, as everyone here knows, are among the 

 most common of the shore fishes from the Woods Hole region south- 

 ward, and, under the name Mugll aJhvla^ were well described by 

 Mitchill in 1811, in New York, but Smith urges (p. 268), "Notwithstand- 

 ing the minute description there given we think there must be some 



