HIPPOLITO SALVIANI. 41 



ber of fish is reduced to ninety-four. Baron Cuvier 

 brings them down to ninety-two* ; which may pos- 

 sibly 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 naturalists; so that, con- 

 sidering the small authority of Pliny and later 

 zoologists, a large proportion, and, in fact, a consi- 

 derable number was brought to notice and described 

 by Salviani. To a few of these our author himself 

 has not ventured to attach a name, though his plates 

 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 

 description, it may be considered as indispensable 

 to the modern ichthyologist. Its extreme rarity 

 * See Diction. Biograph. 



