HISTORY OF ICHTHYOLOGY. 57 



all that has since been accomplished. Klein was a most 

 industrious and even voluminous writer ; and though but 

 little can be said of his ornithological writings, those 

 which relate to the class before us place him, in our 

 estimation, among the most eminent writers in this de- 

 partment of zoology. His chief work is now become so 

 very scarce *, that we have never seen a complete copy 

 offered for sale; while the numerous figures it contains, 

 although perhaps not equal to those of the present day, 

 will always render the work a standing authority. 



No publication of moment appeared during the next 

 fourteen years, excepting that of Gronovius, whose name 

 still ranks high both in botany and zoology. Of his 

 writings we have already spoken, f His latest work on 

 ichthyology, the only one we possess £, is still of much 

 value, not only from containing the characters of several 

 genera first defined by this author, but also for the ex- 

 cellency of the plates; nearly all the figures, indeed, 

 are admirable, and most of them, in the artistical spirit 

 of their execution, are equal to the very best of the 

 present age. The next author of any considerable note 

 wasGouan§, whose ichthyological labours were confined 

 to one volume, in which the genera are described with 

 all that attention to detail, and in that technical lan- 

 guage, introduced by Linnaeus with such incalculable 

 advantage to science. 



(58.) Hitherto, however, ichthyology had been en- 

 tirely without any work expressly devoted to coloured 

 representations of fishes : the magnificent volumes of 

 Catesby, indeed, on the natural history of Carolina, 

 contained several figures of this class of animals ; yet it 



* Jacobe Theodore Klein, Historia Piscium Naturalis, promovenda? 

 missus, 1 — 5. Gedani, 1740 — 1749. The first part contains six plates ; the 

 second, four; the third, seven; the fourth, sixteen; the fifth, twenty; 



besides a portrait of the author. , Mantissa Ichthyologica de Sono et 



Auditu Piscium. Lips. 1746. In my copy of this volume the following 

 note is inserted: — "This is one of the scarcest modern books of its 

 kind that I know of; I desired Dr. Schcefner, of Dantzig, to procure me 

 a copy, but there was not one to be had in 1772. — A. Y. B." 



f Preliminary Discourse, p. 43. 



} L T. Gronovius, Zoophylacii Gronoviani, fascic. 1. Lugduni Bata- 

 vorum, 1763, folio, with thirteen plates of fish. 

 , § Ant Gouan, Historia Piscium. Strasb. 1770. 1 vol. 4to. 



