188 REPORT— 1845. 



years materials for an ample account of the fish of China have existed in 

 England. John Reeves, Esq., who was long resident at Macao, filling an 

 important office in the employ of the India Company, with an enlightened 

 munificence, caused beautiful coloured drawings, mostly of the natural size, 

 to be made of no fewer than 34*0 species of fish which are brought to the 

 markets at Canton. These drawings are executed with a correctness and 

 finish which will be sought for in vain in the older works on ichthyology, 

 and which are not surpassed in the plates of any large European work of the 

 present day. The unrivalled brilliancy and effect of the colouring, and cor- 

 rectness of profile, render them excellent portraits of the fish they are intended 

 to represent ; but further details of a technical kind, such as the distribution 

 of the teeth in the roof of the mouth, the numbers of the gill-rays, and the 

 fine serratures and denticulations on the edges of the opercular pieces, are 

 required for the location of the species in their proper genera. Such minute 

 characters, which can be detected, in many instances, only by aid of a lens, 

 require to be exaggerated to be shown in a drawing, and indeed, when the 

 serratures of the gill-pieces were sufficiently large to be conspicuous to the 

 naked eye, the Chinese artist has seldom failed to represent them. Mr, 

 Reeves had four copies of these drawings made. One set, which he presented 

 to General Hardwicke, is bound up with that officer's large collection of 

 sketches of Indian fish, in four folio volumes, which he bequeathed to the 

 British Museum. These volumes have been inspected by many English and 

 foreign ichthyologists, and, among others, by Muller and Henle, who refer to 

 them in their excellent ' Plagiostomen.' Another copy, left by Mr. Reeves at 

 Macao with Mr. Beale, formed the groundwork of the enumeration of Chi- 

 nese fish in Bridgeman's ' Chrestomathy,' in which, by the way, very nume- 

 rous mistakes in the generic names occur. A third copy, which he liberally 

 lent to me, is the foundation of this report*. The Banksian library also 

 contains a work entitled ' Figurse. Piscium Sinensium a Pictore Sinensi pictae,' 

 which is referred to by M. Valenciennes in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 volumes of the ' Histoire des Poissons,' treating of the Cyprinidce ; the same 

 library possesses a Japanese treatise on fishes, with their Chinese names ap- 

 pended, and with coloured plates ; and a manuscript work entitled, " Descrip- 

 tions of Animals," being an account, in the Linnaean method, of the various 

 species, both terrestrial and marine, observed in a voyage to India and China, 

 with pen and ink figures of small size, but well-executed. The author is un- 

 known. There are also several Chinese works in the library of the British 

 Museum containing figures of fishes, but they are far inferior to the others 

 we have mentioned, and look more like fanciful designs than natural history 



* General Hardwicke began his collections of illustrations of Asiatic zoology in the last 

 century, and continued them till his final return to this country in 1818. He lost many 

 specimens and the fruit of much labour by three several shipwrecks ; but this, instead of 

 damping his ardour, roused him to fresh exertions, and he was busy up to the time of his 

 death in preparing his collections for publication, the scientific part having been undertaken 

 by Mr. Gray. Among the drawings of fish which he procured, there are some by Major 

 Neeld, others by Major Farquhar, and a considerable number copied from the drawings of 

 Buchanan Hamilton, by that gentleman's consent, and by the same artists which he em- 

 ployed. This is mentioned because a charge of piracy has been made in the Calcutta Journal 

 against General Hardwicke, who was however too high-minded to appropriate to himself 

 the labours of others without due acknowledgement ; and the careful references in his own 

 writing on the drawings of Buchanan Hamilton, show that he had no intention of claiming 

 anything that belonged to that distinguished naturalist. The General bequeathed his speci- 

 mens and the whole of his collections of drawings, amounting to twenty folio volumes, to the 

 British Museum, and also set apart a sum of money to defray the expense of publishing the 

 scientific description of them. His collections have been deposited, as he wished, in the 

 national institution, but his intentions respecting the publication have been entirely frustrated 

 by a chancery suit, which was instituted soon after his death. 



