208 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
Apart from the utility of the subject as a means to an end, it may 
also prove not uninteresting from a philological point of view, if only 
as in some measure indicating the rich field of investigation open to 
the philologist in South Africa. 
That it will prove interesting and useful to many amateur naturalists. 
and enthusiastic fishers in South Africa, who have supplied much of 
the information, I do not doubt. 
Before entering into the question of the origin and history of 
individual names I shall give a list of those which have been procured. 
They are arranged alphabetically for convenience of reference, but 
different names for the same fish are grouped together under one of 
these names (the oldest as in zoological nomenclature) and are 
followed by the scientific name so far as it can be ascertained. 
Where the various synonyms occur again in their alphabetic place a 
reference is merely made to the oldest name. The list is thus not 
merely a catalogue, but an attempt to identify the various fish to 
which the names are applied. This has not been an easy matter, 
and I cannot hope that the result is at all free from possible error. 
In many cases I have added in brackets after the name the locality 
in which it is used, and in others the authority by whom used. 
Where the name has only been heard and not found in written 
form, I have spelt it phonetically and added the word voce. These 
additions, however, are only given in cases where they seem of 
particular interest. 
[For list see end of this paper where it is also used as an index. ] 
The most striking feature of this list is the mixture of Dutch and 
English names, the former being predominant. Of the Dutch names 
there are several for which no English synonym has been found; nor 
are these confined to the rarer fish which might be known only in 
Dutch communities, but include such well-known forms as the 
Snoek. A very few names—only one or two—occur which are 
apparently neither of Dutch or English origin, but are for this reason 
all the more interesting as probable relics of the past, for in nomen- 
clature there is as truly a natural selection or the survival of the 
fittest, as in the arena of animal life. I hope, indeed, to be able to 
point out some instances in which the process is now going on. 
It is well known to the philologist that names form an unwritten 
history of the vicissitudes through which a country has passed, as 
well asreflect the character of the people who originate and use them— 
in short, that the human struggle for existence is—dimly it may be, 
but faithfully—reflected in nomenclature, and it will be found 
instructive to keep this in view in endeavouring to trace the origin 
of the individual names. 
