The Physiognomy of Fishes 



R. W. Shufeldt, M.D. 



A part of a paper read before the Aquarium Society of Washington, D. C. 



When we employ the terms physiognomy in its restricted 

 sense, it is taken simply to mean the art of character-reading 

 in man through a study of what his facial features indicate. 

 It is further defined as the art of ascertaining the general charac- 

 teristic qualities, mental as well as temperamental, of a person 

 through similar observations. Some of the researchers in this 

 field still further extend the domain of physiognomy, including 

 in it character-reading in mankind through a study of not only 

 facial indications, but of the entire body as well, both in health 

 and disease; when at rest or in motion, and when hfe is extinct. 

 It also refers to fortune-telling from the face, and finally to the 

 configuration of any object, even including a landscape. These 

 last two definitions do not concern us here; and the way the term 

 is usually defined in our best lexicons fails to come up to what the 

 legitimate scope of physiognomy really is. 



In the first place, if what it represents to us, either in face or 

 form, is correctly interpreted, and the ascertained facts systemati- 

 cally recorded, it ceases to be mere art, and unquestionably 

 passes into the realm of the anatomical and physiological sciences. 

 More than this, it should, fn its application, be taken to include 

 not only the representatives of our own species, but of all other 

 animals, as far down the scale as to include those that exhibit 

 any characters or movements of the face and body, which indicate 

 to the mind of the observer, their meaning in the individual 

 exhibiting them. Meanness of character; viciousness of temper, 

 cowardice, hate, sympathy, and numerous other characteristics 

 and emotions, are as distinctly indicated, when well pronounced 

 in the face of an ape, or a dog, as in most men and women. This 

 being the case, animal physiognomy should be defined as the 

 science of determining some of the characteristics and tempera- 

 ments of individuals, through a study and comparison of what the 

 face and form presents at all times during health and disease, 

 and after life has become extinct. Phrenology is but a department 

 of physiognomy, and both have not a little in common with 

 comparative psychology. 



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