FISHES OF THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK 



AND OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THEM CLASSIFIED AND REVISED 



By J. T. NICHOLS 



I. How To Study Fishes Systematically 

 ASPECTS OF THE STUDY OF FISHES 



Ichthyology, or the scientific study of fishes, like that of any other 

 group of animals, may be roughly divided into three aspects, Systematic, 

 Economic and Philosophic. 



Systematic Ichthyology deals with defining, naming and classify- 

 ing fishes. It is a very necessary preliminary to every other branch of 

 the subject, without which our knowledge would fall into the utmost 

 confusion. The most satisfactory system which has been devised for 

 assigning technical names to fishes (as indeed to all animals and plants), 

 and the one universally followed, is to combine two names, the first or 

 generic name shared by the kinds most closely related, the second or 

 specific name diagnostic of the one which bears it. The generic name 

 is always spelled with a capital, the specific name with a small letter. 



Economic Ichthyology is the study of fishes in relation to human 

 welfare, and its most important branch naturally is concerned with their 

 use as food fisheries, fish-culture, etc. Few persons realize on what a 

 large scale fish-culture, fish-farming it might be called, is carried on. In 

 the year ending June 30, 1917, the United States Bureau of Fisheries 

 distributed roughly three hundred nineteen millions of fish eggs and four 

 thousand seven hundred thirty millions of young fishes to be planted in 

 various waters. 



Philosophic Ichthyology concerns itself with the fish and its place in 

 nature, the broadest and purest aspect of the science. It follows the 

 evolution of fishes by the evidence of fossil records from early periods in 

 the earth's history to the many specialized forms of the present day. It 

 examines the wonderful correlations existing between the habits and 

 structures of fishes. In fact its possibilities and ramifications are without 

 limit. 



The series of vertebrate (back-boned) animals from fishes to man is 

 characterized by an increasingly complicated structure, an increasingly 

 complicated environment for the individual to react to, and an increas- 

 ingly complicated mentality. Fishes doubtless possess the simplest, 

 lowest type of vertebrate mind. A great deal of their behavior can be 

 explained as reflex action, a definite stimulus followed by a definite 



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