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CS) 0 es 
SS ORS nS Oa OS OS a 6 On a 6 On a 6 kh 
es Fe a eee 
Among the writers of ancient times on 
fishes 
lowed after Aristotle—no name is better 
and especially those who fol- 
known, perhaps, than that of P. Belon, 
who flourished over 1900 years after him. 
Belon was at the height of his fame at 
about the time his De aquatilibus libri 
duo appeared in Paris, which was during 
the year 1553. Prior to the appearance 
of this celebrated ichthyological work, 
he had published several other less for- 
mal ones, they being based upon the 
specimens he had collected from 1547 to 
1550 along the eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean Sea and in the rivers of 
the countries bordering upon it. 
Some one hundred and ten fishes are 
described and figured by Belon, to which 
he gives the common as well as the sci- 
entific names; and he further paid, in 
his work, considerable attention to both 
| History of Ichthyology. Part 2 
MAJOR R. W. SHUFELDT, Medical Corps, U. S. A. 
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MONOCANTHUS HISPIDUS 
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(The 
THE FILE-FISH 
fom me mm mmo 6 es Ps Pc as 9s FF a a Ps 
external and internal structure. He 
knew the principal bones of the piscine 
skeleton, though he rarely defined them. 
Indeed, many of his fishes were classified 
according to size, while he came much 
nearer the truth when he referred them 
to two groups—those having blood and 
those that did not; and then subse- 
quently employed, taxonomically, such 
characters as he was familiar with, or 
had personally for the first time de- 
scribed. Sometimes he would supplement 
the description of a fish with an account 
of its special habitat, thus fully estab- 
lishing his reputation for adopting the 
methods of the naturalist— 
whether of ancient or of modern times. 
Following Belon, next in order of dis- 
tinction was H. Salviani (1514-72), a 
Roman writer on the fishes of Italy 
(1554-57), the work entitled 
scientific 
being 
