SPINOUS FISHES. 283 



by which they are to be distinguished ; something that gives preci- 

 sion to our ideas of the animal whose history we desire to know. 



Of the real history of fishes, very little is yet known ; but of very 

 many we have full and sufficient accounts, as to their external form. 

 It would be unpardonable, therefore, in a history of these animals, 

 not to give the little we do know ; and, at least arrange our forces, 

 though we cannot tell their destination. In this art of arrangement, 

 Artedi and Linnaeus have long been conspicuous : they have both ta- 

 ken a view of the animal's form in different lights ; and, from tho 

 parts which most struck them, have founded their respective systems. 



Artedi, who was foremost, perceiving that some fishes had hard 

 prickly fins, as the pike ; that others had soft, pliant ones, as the her- 

 ring ; and that others still wanted that particular fin, by which the 

 gills are opened and shut, as the eel, made out a system from these 

 varieties. Linnaeus, on the other hand, rejecting this system, which 

 he found liable to too many exceptions, considered the fins, not with 

 regard to their substance, but their position. The ventral fins seem 

 to be the great object of his system ; he considers them in fishes sup- 

 plying the same offices as feet in quadrupeds ; and from their total ab- 

 sence, or from their being situated nearer the head or the tail, in dif- 

 ferent fishes, he takes the differences of his system. 



These arrangements, which are totally arbitrary, and which are 

 rather a method than a science, are always fluctuating ; and the last 

 is generally preferred to that which went before. There has lately ap- 

 peared, however, a system composed by Mr. Gouan of Montpelier, that 

 deserves applause for more than its novelty. It appears to me the best 

 arrangement of this kind that ever was made ; and in it the divisions 

 are not only precisely systematical, but, in some measure, adopted by 

 Nature itself. This learned Frenchman has united the systems of 

 Artedi and Linnaeus together ; and, by bringing one to correct the 

 other, has made out a number of tribes, that are marked with the ut- 

 most precision. A part of his system, however, we have already gone 

 through, in the cartilaginous, or, as he calls a part of them, the 

 branc/iiostcgous tribe of fishes. In the arrangement of these, I have 

 followed Linnaeus, as the number of them was but small, and his me- 

 thod simple. But in that which is more properly called the spinous 

 class of fishes, I will follow Mr. Gouan's system ; the terms of which, 

 as well as of all the former systems, require some explanation. I do 

 not love to multiply the technical terms of a science ; but it often 

 happens that names, by being long used, are as necessary to be known 

 as the science itself. 



If we consider the substance of the fin of a fish, we shall find i 

 composed, besides the skin, either of straight, hard, pointed, bony 

 prickles or spines, as in the pike ; or of soft, crooked, or forked bones, 

 or cartilages, as in the herring. The fish that have bony, prickly 

 fins, are called pric.kly-finned fish ; the latter, that have soft or cartila- 

 ginous fins, are called soft-firmed fish. The prickly-fin ned fish have 

 received the Greek new-formed name of Acanthoptcrigii : the soft 

 finned fish have likewise their barbarous Greek name of Malacop 

 terigii. Thus far Artedi has supplied Mr. Gouan with names and 

 divisions. All spinous fish are divided into prickly-finned fish and 

 soft-finned fish. 



