HIPPOLITO SALTIANI. 41 



Cuvier brings them down to ninety-two*; which 

 may possibly be a mistake, but more probably arises 

 from his having considered several plates as nothing 

 more than duplicates of others. Of this reduced 

 number, eighteen species appear to have been 

 previously unnamed and undescribed ; and ten 

 more, having no Greek appellation, must have 

 been unknown to Aristotle and the earlier natu- 

 ralists ; so that, considering the small authority 

 of Pliny and later zoologists, a large proportion, 

 and, in fact, a considerable number w^as brought 

 to notice and described by Salviani. To a few 

 of these our author himself has not ventured to 

 attach a name, though his |)lates have enabled later 

 Ichthyologists to do so; and thus real progress 

 was made, and the benefit retained in our modern 

 systems. 



Thus, then, without aiming at any thing like a 

 complete analysis, have we endeavoured to furnish 

 an account and specimen of this important work, 

 ample to an extent commensurate with the respect 

 we conceive due to our author on the one. hand, 

 and to our readers on the other ; and by which the 

 latter may at once form a correct estimate of the 

 kind and variety of information they are likely to 

 derive from consulting its pages. We have some- 

 where seen it observed concerning this volume, that 

 on account of the general accuracy of its plates and 

 descriptions it may be considered as indispensable 

 to the modern Ichthyologist. Its extreme rarity 

 * See Diction. Biograph. 



