554 M'.Mu7't7'ie's Translation of the Regne Animal. 



ralists, would have embraced so favourable an occasion of doing 

 justice to his own countrymen. The greatest favour they receive 

 from him is in mentioning them very seldom, and it certainly is 

 a favour to be misrepresented as little as possible. 



It would extend this communication to an inconvenient length, 

 were I to note all the errors and omissions of this second volume, 

 which contains evidences of great carelessness and unbecoming 

 forwardness, in pronouncing judgment upon matters the trans- 

 lator, evidently, does not understand. At page 119, speaking of 

 the CoTTUs, after the words, " The salt water species are more 

 spinous, and when irritated their head becomes still more infla- 

 ted," there is an omission of this passage " nos cotes en ont 

 deux nommees chaboisseaux, scorpions de mer, &c." Having 

 excluded these trivial names upon the only occasion when it was 

 useful to introduce them, he proceeds, " Such areC. scorpius L; 

 Bl. 40. (The Father Lasher, &c.") This vulgar name, father- 

 lasher, is an interpolation of his own. Cuvier having described 

 these two species Cottus Scorpius, and C huhalis, says, " La mer 

 baltique en a une troisieme espece distinguee par quatre tube- 

 rositas osseuses et cariees sur le crane. (C. quadricoonis, Bl. 

 108." Which passage the translator proceeds to mangle and 

 mistate in the following paraphrase. "C. quadricornis, Bl. 108, 

 (the four horned bull-head,) distinguished by four quadrate and 

 bony tubercles. These three species are found in the European 

 seas, the latter, more particularly, in the Baltic." This is a great 

 specimen of what want of knowledge is capable, when backed 

 by presumption. In attempting to recast the whole of Cuvier's 

 very lucid statement, and to supply the passage before omitted, 

 he translates one word erroneously, turning " cariees" (carious) 

 into quadrate, and entirely misleading the ichthyologist as to 

 habits, for he says the three species are found in the European seas, 

 the latter, more particularly, in the Baltic, when his author had 

 expressly said, that the two first were found on the French coast, 

 and the last in the Baltic sea. 



Another instance, of like nature, occurs at page 138. Cuvier, 

 speaking of the Gerres, says, at page 188, " Les Gerres, nob. 

 vulgairement Mocharra chez les Espagnols d'Amerique." It is 

 the custom of this naturalist, when he notices one of his own 

 genera or species, to add nob. as an abbreviation for nobis: this no 

 translator has a right to alter ; Dr. M'Murtrie, however, trans- 



