Dr L. Mandl on the Scales of Fishes. 115 



tinctly points out. These observations of Reaumur have 

 escaped the notice of most of the modern authors who have 

 written on the scales of fishes. 



Roberg (Dissert, de Piscibus, Ups. 1717, in quarto), in the 

 description he has published of the eel, has copied Leuwen- 

 hoek's figure. 



Petit {Memoires de VAcademie, 1733, Paris, 1735, p. 193) 

 gives only very incomplete figures of the scales of the carp, 

 examined by the naked eye. 



Schoeffer (Piscium Bavarico-ratisbonensium pentas, Ratisb. 

 1761, p. 28, 43, &c.), in describing the scales of the fishes be- 

 longing to the family of the Percoides, alludes to the small 

 teeth on their free edges, and the roughness resulting from 

 this, in which he even thinks he can find the reason why pikes 

 always swallow perches with the head foremost and never the 

 tail: — " Omnes ex parte posteriori . . denticulis acutis ex- 

 asperatas ; quae tamen denticuli seu aculei minime, ut auctores 

 affirmant, retrorsum flexa, sed recta caudam respiciunt, quae 

 directio etiam in causa est, quae manum caudam versus ducens 

 nullam, caput versus punctoriam, asperitatem sensit ;" and in 

 a note, — " si id quod Willughbeius refert, perpetua experi- 

 entia docet, quod piscis lucius percas semper capite, nunquam 

 in Cauda apprehendit et sic deglutiat, eo confirmai'etur ; lu- 

 cium sibi mirum in modum providere, non inscium, a capite ad 

 caudam denticulos non sentiri, et innocuos esse." He sub- 

 joins a plate containing figures of the scales of the perch, and 

 although all these figures are alike, Schoeffer thinks he can 

 discover important differences in them. 



Raster (Opuscula Subseciva, Harlemi, 1759-1765. Liber, iii. 

 1761, p. 127) treats of many different matters in a paragraph 

 entitled De Squamis Piscium, and in the few words he de- 

 votes to the subject, he scarcely says more than Borellus. He 

 adds a plate, however, containing figures of forty-one scales of 

 diflferent genera of fishes, among which we remark that of the 

 eel, which Leuwenhoek had delineated about fifty years be- 

 fore with nmch greater accuracy. With regard to the small 

 teeth of the scales, they are much more faithfully represented 

 in Hooke's drawings, imperfect as these are. 



It is important in the histoi-y of micrography to be made 



