

Fossil Fishes. 37 



c< These notices concerning the rich and splendid materials with 

 which, from so many quarters, I have been favored during the past 

 year, naturally suggest some additional remarks concerning that por- 

 tion of our work which has been already executed, and also regard- 

 ing that which still remains for the furtherance of the science of fossil 

 fishes. 



" The study of Ichthyology has, in all past ages, been much ne- 

 glected, in comparison with that of the other branches of natural his- 

 tory. The extreme difficulty which exists in observing fishes in 

 their watery haunts, and in collecting authentic facts regarding their 

 habits, and the w T hole of their animal economy, has rendered this sci- 

 ence much less attractive than the history of the great mammifera, 

 and of the feathered tribes. Even reptiles, hideous and oft times 

 dangerous as they are, have found more admirers than fishes ; and 

 concerning the attractions of entomology and conchology, we need 

 say nothing. In the midst of so many favorite fields of research, 

 fishes have remained hid from us in the vast oceans which they in- 

 habit, for the number of those already described is comparatively 

 small ; and if the great work on Ichthyology of Cuvier and Valen- 

 ciennes promised us the description of from six to eight thousand 

 species, the greater is our regret that the volumes which have hith- 

 erto appeared contain no more than a fifth part of the number. And 

 now, notwithstanding all these attending difficulties,, the first steps 

 being taken, and an entrance effected into these new regions, what 

 a world of wonders presents itself in the depths of the ocean, and in 

 the inaccessible haunts of the creatures which inhabit it ? In ap- 

 proximating to these results, w T e unfortunately cannot repose confi- 

 dence on any guides whom we now possess, since the older amongst 

 them reveal but a few species, and the best of the more modern, 

 leave us in the midst of the investigation. Accordingly, I have had 

 to pursue my researches, in a great degree, independently of every 

 thing which was previously accomplished, in establishing an equi- 

 librium in the various branches of Ichthyology, and in making the 

 whole of this labor nothing more than a simple introduction to the 

 examination of those fossil species I sought to determine ; for it will 

 now be readily conceived, that those memoirs concerning Ichthyo- 

 lites which were published some twenty years ago, do not now ex- 

 hibit results in keeping with the knowledge which may be easily ac- 

 quired regarding the existing species, in the many great collections 

 throughout Europe. 



