The History of Ichthyology 007 



cal ways, sometimes brilliant, occasionally of deep insight, but 

 more often, on the whole, dull, plodding, and mechanical. 



Earliest of those isAntoine Gouan, whose " Historia Pisci- 

 um" was published in Paris in 1770. In this work, which is of 

 fair quality, only genera were included, and the three new ones 

 which he introduces into the "System" {Lepadogaster, Lepi- 

 dopus, and Trachypterus) are still retained with his definition of 

 them. 



Johann Friedrich Gmelin (i 748-1 804), a relative of the ex- 

 plorers of Siberia, pubhshed in 1788 a thirteenth edition of the 

 "Systema Naturae" of Linna}us, adding to it the discoveries of 

 Forskal, Forster, and others who had written since Linnaeus' 

 time. This work was useful as bringing the compilation of 

 Linnseus to a later date, but it is not well done, the compiler 

 having little knowledge of the animals described and little pene- 

 tration in matters of taxonomy. Very similar in character, 

 although more lucid in expression, is the French compilation 

 of the same date (1788), "Tableau Encyclopedique et Metho- 

 dique des Trois Regnes de la Nature," by the Abbe J. P. Bon- 

 naterre. Another volume of the "Encyclopedic Methodique," 

 of still less merit, was published as a dictionary in Paris in 1787 

 by Rene Just Haiiy. Another dictionary in 181 7 even poorer 

 was the work of Hippolyte Cloquet. 



In 1792, Johann Julius Walbaum (i 721-1800), a German 

 compiler of a little higher rank, gathered together the records 

 of all known species, using the work of Artedi as a basis and 

 giving binominal names in place of the vernacular terms used 

 by Schopf, Steller, Pennant, and Krascheninnikov. 



Far more pretentious and more generally useful, as well as 

 containing a large amount of original material, is the " Ichthyo- 

 logia" of Mark Eliezer Bloch, published in Berlin in various 

 parts from 1782 to 1785. It was originally in German and 

 divided into two portions — " Oeconomische Naturgeschichte 

 der Fische Deutschlands " and "Naturgeschichte der ausland- 

 ischen Fische." Bloch was a Jewish physician, born at Ans- 

 pach in 1723, and at the age of fifty- six began to devote himself 

 to ichthyology. In his great work is contained every species 

 which he had himself seen, every one which he could purchase 



