328 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 506. 



,1843.* The second edition is a mere re- 

 issue, apparently, of the unsold remainder 

 of the original, with a new title page and 

 publisher's name. Even the original list 

 of 'errata' is retained Avithout any addi- 

 tions. 



Now let us examine the work and we will 

 find out what a strange production it was. 



Smith's chief fountain of information 

 was Mitehill's monograph, 'The Fishes of 

 New York described and arranged,' pub- 

 lished in 1815 in the Transactio7is of the 



* Smith ( Jerome Van Crowningshield ) . 'Natural 



History of the Fishes of Massachusetts, em- 

 bracing a practical essay on angling.' By 

 Jerome V. C. Smith, M.D. [Fig. of Falls.] 

 Boston: Allen and Tieknor. 1833. [12mo, vii, 

 399 (-1-1) pp.] 



The same with fifty-four wood engraA'ings. 



By Jerome V. C. Smith, M.D. [Fig. of Men- 

 haden.] Second Edition. Boston: William D. 

 Tieknor. MDCCCXLIII. [12mo, vii + 399 



(+1) PP-l 



Its character was exposed in " Remarks on the 

 ' Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts. 



* * * ' Read before the Boston Society of Nat- 

 ural History, March 20, 1839. By D. Humphreys 

 Storer, M.D. <^ American Journal of Science and 

 Arts (Silliman's), Vol. XXXVI., July, 1839, pp. 

 337-349." According to Dr. Storer (p. 348), the 

 work of his compatriot contains " notices of 105 

 species, of which 80 are foreigners, and but 25 

 are found in the waters of our State. Of these 

 105 species, 36 are illustrated by figures; of these 

 36 illustrations, but 9 accompany species which 

 are found on our coast; of these 9 figures, 6 are 

 copied from ' Straek's Plates,' and 3 from Mit- 

 ehill's 'Fishes of New York'; of the 36 illustra- 

 tions [small wood-cut figures] contained in this 

 ' History,' not one is drawn from nature." 



The other contributions of Smith to the ichthyol- 

 ogy of Massachusetts are mere lists of names, viz: 



' A Catalogue of the Marine Fishes taken on 



the Atlantic Coast of Massachusetts. * * * ' 

 [Also, ' Fishes found in the Rivers, Mountain- 

 Streams and Ponds of Massachusetts.'] > Re- 

 port on the geology, mineralogy, botany and 



* zoology of Massachusetts. By Edward Hitch- 

 cock. Boston, 1833, pp. 533-554. 



A list of 52 nominal species of marine and 17 

 of fresh-water fishes. 



There is discrepancy between the diff'erent 

 biograpliical sketches of Smith as to name 



Literary and Philosophical Society of New 

 York. 



He evidently had, as a standby, John 

 Starks's 'Elements of Natural History,' 

 published at Edinburgh in 1828, in which 

 the classification proposed by Cuvier in the 

 first edition of the 'Regne Animal' (1817), 

 was followed. This served Smith as a 

 guide for the arrangement of his material. 

 Although the second edition of the 'Regne 

 Animal' (1829) had been translated and 

 published in New York a couple of years 

 before (1831), it was unknown to Smith. 



Another work he referred to as ' the Con- 

 versations Lexicon'; it was the 'Encyclo- 

 pedia americana' of those days, which had 

 then been very recently published. 



For the illustrations, he had a work long 

 ago forgotten, but which had a considerable 

 circulation in its day; it was Strack's 'Na- 

 turgeschichte in Bildern mit erlauterndem 



(Crowninshield or Crowningshield) and several 

 dates. The article in Appleton's Dictionary of 

 American biography is chiefly followed. 

 [' Revised Catalogue of the Fishes of Massa- 

 chusetts.'] <0p. cit., 1833, pp. 597-598. 

 A list of 102 nominal species, 83 of which (in- 

 cluding the Bodiani = Morone) are salt- or 

 brackish-water, and 19 fresh-water. 

 ' A Catalogue of the Marine and Fresh- 

 Water Fishes of Massachusetts. < Op. cit., 

 second edition. Boston, 1835, pp. 534-538. 

 A list of the same character as the preceding, 

 enumerating 106 nominal species (and 2 varieties) , 

 of which 89 are salt- or brackish-water, and 17 

 fresh-water. Reproduced (pp. 15-18) in the 

 ' Catalogues of the Animals and Plants of Massa- 

 chusetts ' (edited by Edward Hitchcock), Am- 

 herst, 1835, reprinted (same type) from the sec- 

 ond edition of the above-cited work. 



The catalogue is a repetition of the names 

 (without description or remarks) of the author's 

 ' Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts.' 

 This compilation was also criticized (by Dr. 

 D. H. Storer) in 1S37 in "An Examination of the 

 • Catalogue of the Marine and Fresh-water Fishes 

 of Massachusetts,' by J. V. C. Smith, M.D.," con- 

 tained in Professor Hitchcock's ' Report on the 

 Geology, Mineralogy, etc., of Massachusetts, by 

 D. Humphreys Storer, M.D.' < Boston Journal 

 of Natural History, Vol. 1., pp. 347-365, pi. VIII. 

 (May, 1836). 



