ICHTHYOLOGIC WORK 35 



these fishes? That is the one question which, for 

 some species, yet awaits solution. A goodly number 

 have been finally fixed upon, though space here 

 forbids listing the Rafinesquian genera and species 

 together with their modern nomenclatural identities. 

 So far as this has yet been accomplished, the reader 

 may find the results in the published writings of Dr. 

 David Starr Jordan.* 



The Ichthyologia Okiensis is, therefore, the literary 

 foundation of American ichthyologic science. It 

 marks the very beginning of our knowledge of the 

 forms of the Ohio valley, — and, incidentally, of the 

 entire Mississippi system, throughout which some of 

 the forms that it first characterized are now known 

 to range. A knowledge of the contents of this book 

 must ever be indispensable to any student who 

 attempts to work in this rich field. Bold almost 

 beyond conception in its innovations upon accepted 

 methods of nomenclature ; without the check of crit- 

 ical comparison of forms taken over a wide geographic 

 range; faulty as it certainly is in the perspicacity 

 and fullness of its technical descriptions; tattooed 

 here and there with mythical names, or rendered 

 almost puerile by the introduction of questionable 

 details secured at second-hand; disregarding the 

 sequential arrangement of its families and genera, 

 each of which appears to be considered as an inde- 

 pendent assemblage; yet, both from historic and 



*The chief of these, up to the present time, is a " Review of 

 Rafinesque's Memoirs on North American Fishes," U. S. National 

 Museum, 1877, Bulletin no. ix. See also Jordan and Gilbert, 

 "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America," U. S. National Mu- 

 seum, 1883, Bulletin no. xvi. ; Jordan and Evermann, "The Fishes 

 of North and Middle America," U. S. National Museum, 1896-98, 

 Bulletin no. 47, [Four volumes]. 



