The History of Ichthyology 401 



on which his labors were based, must still be considered to be 

 one of the most important in existence. 



"Those little low rooms, five in number" (in the museum 

 of the Jardin des Plantes), "they should be the Mecca of scien- 

 tific devotees. Perhaps every great zoologist of the past hun- 

 dred years has sat in them and discussed those problems of 

 life which are always inviting solution and are never solved. 

 The spirits of great naturalists still haunt these corridors and 

 speak from the specimens their hands have set in order." 

 (Theodore Lyman.) 



Cuvier's studies of the different species of fishes are con- 

 tained in the great " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," the joint 

 work of Cuvier and his pupil and successor, Achille Valen- 

 ciennes (i 794-1 865). Of this work 22 volumes were pub- 

 lished, from 1828 to 1849, containing 4514 nominal species, the 

 greater portion being written after the death of Cuvier (1832). 

 The work was finally left unfinished on account of a disagree- 

 ment with the publisher. Dr. Gill tells me that at this time 

 Valenciennes made an unsuccessful appeal to the Smithsonian 

 Institution for assistance in the publication of the remaining 

 chapters. 



This is a most masterly work, indispensable to the student 

 of fishes. Its descriptions are generally fairly correct, its plates 

 accurate, and its judgments trustworthy. But with all this it 

 is very unequal. Too often nominal species are based on vari- 

 ations due to age or sex or to the conditions of preservation of 

 specimens. Many of the species are treated very lightly by 

 Cuvier; many of the descriptions of Valenciennes are very 

 mechanical, as though the author had grown weary of the end- 

 less process, ' ' a failing commonly observed among zoologists 

 when attention to descriptive details becomes to them a tedi- 

 ous task." 



After the death of Valenciennes (1865) Dr. Auguste Du- 

 meril began another Natural History of the Fishes. Of this 

 two volumes (1865-70) were published covering sharks, ganoids, 

 and other fishes not treated by Cuvier and Valenciennes, his 

 category beginning at the opposite end of the fish series. The 

 death of Dumeril left this catalogue also unfinished. Dumeril's 

 work is useful and carefully done, but his excessive trust in 



