MifiMOlR 



HIPPOLITO SALVIANI 



THOUGH the subject of the present Memoir is pro- 

 bably unknown even by name to the vast majority of 

 our readers, he nevertheless possesses such indispu- 

 table claims to celebrity, as an early and successful 

 cultivator of Natural History, that his services 

 should be overlooked by none who take an interest 

 in the study of Zoology. Flourishing in a distant 

 age, in agitating and troublous times, and con- 

 fining his chief attention to a somewhat obscure 

 and difficult department of the science, his services 

 seem to have been appreciated only by Ichthyolo- 

 gists; and certainly he has never acquired that 

 notoriety in the general annals of literature which 

 nas been bestowed upon much inferior men. Even 

 his name is not inscribed in those long lists which 

 have been accumulated, in the course of ages, in 

 the commonwealth of European celebrity ; and still 

 less has it fouad a place in the annals of British 



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