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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 398. 



every one which he coiild i^urchase from 

 collections, and every one of which he could 

 find drawings made by others. 



That part which relates to the fishes of 

 Germany is admirably done. In the treat- 

 ment of East Indian and American fishes 

 there is much guess work, and many errors 

 of description and of fact, for which the 

 author was not directly responsible. To 

 learn to interpret the personal equation in 

 the systematic work of other men is one 

 of the most delicate of taxonomic arts. 



After the publication of these great folio 

 volumes of plates. Dr. Bloch began a sys- 

 tematic catalogue to include all known spe- 

 cies. This was published after his death 

 by his collaborator, the pliilologist. Dr. 

 Johann Gottlob Schneider. This work, ' Sys- 

 tema lehthyologite M. B. Blochii,' contains 

 1,519 species of fishes, and is the most cred- 

 itable compilation subsequent to the death 

 of Linnffius. 



Even more important than the work of 

 Bloch is that of the Comte de Lacepede, 

 who became with the progress of the 

 French Eevolution ' Citoyen Lacepede,' 

 his original full name being Bernard Ger- 

 main Etienne de la Ville-sur-Illon, Comte 

 de Lacepede. His great work, ' Histoire 

 Naturelle des Poissons, ' was published orig- 

 inally in five volumes, in Paris, from 1798 

 to 1803. It was brought out under great 

 difficulties, his materials being scattered, 

 his country in a constant tumult. For 

 original material he depended chiefly on 

 the collection and sagacious notes of the 

 traveler Commerson. Dr. Gill sums up the 

 strength and weakness of Lacepede 's work 

 in thfese terms : 



' ' A work by an able man and eloquent 

 writer even prone to aid rhetoric by the aid 

 of the imagination in absence of desirable 

 facts, but which because of undue confi- 

 dence in others, default of comparison of 

 material from want thereof and otherwise. 



and carelessness generally, is entirely un- 

 reliable. ' ' 



The work of Lacepede had a large influ- 

 ence upon subsequent investigators, espe- 

 cially in France. A large portion of the 

 numerous new genera of Rafinesque was 

 founded on divisions made in the analytical 

 keys of Lacepede. 



In 1803 and 1804, Dr. George Shaw pub- 

 lished in London his ' General Zoology, ' the 

 fishes forming part of Vohmies IV. and V. 

 This is a poor compilation, the part con- 

 cerning the fishes being largely extracted 

 from Bloch and Lacepede. In 1807, Con- 

 stant Dumeril published an analytical table 

 of classification of some merit as ' Ichthy- 

 ologie Analytique,' and about 1815, H. 

 Ducrotay de Blainville A^TOte the ' Fauna 

 Frangaise ' and contributed important 

 studies to the taxonomy of sharks. 



With Georges Chretien Leopold Dago- 

 bert Cuvier and the ' Regne Animal Ar- 

 range apres son Organization' (1817- 

 1826) we have the beginning of a new era 

 in ichthyology. This period is character- 

 ized by a recognition of the existence of a 

 natural classification based on the prin- 

 ciples of morphology. The ' Regne Ani- 

 mal ' is, in the history of ichthyology, not 

 less important than the ' Systema Naturse ' 

 itself, and from it dates practically our 

 knowledge of families of fishes, and the in- 

 terrelations of the groups themselves. The 

 great facts of homology were clearly under- 

 stood by Cuvier. Their significance as in- 

 dications of lines of descent was never 

 grasped by him, and this notwithstanding 

 the fact that Cuvier was almost the first 

 to bring extinct forms into the proper rela- 

 tions with those now living. 



Dr. Gunther well says that the investi- 

 gation of anatomy of fishes was continued 

 by Cuvier until he had succeeded in com- 

 pleting so perfect a framework of the sys- 

 tem of the whole class that his immediate 



