40 



gians, maintained their ground for a long period with 

 hardly any modification. By degrees, however, they 

 were subdivided, as the knowledge of the science in- 

 creased and numerous new forms were discovered. 

 Nevertheless, as late as the year 1904, one of the most 

 eminent of living ichthyologists, partly no doubt out 

 of piety, has made use of the designation Malacoptery- 

 gians for a Sub-order of osseous fishes containing a nu- 

 cleus of those fishes Artedi placed in the Order of the 

 same name, e. g. herrings and salmon. The above- 

 mentioned author, has, furthermore, employed the name 

 Acanthopterygians for a Sub-order, which in addition 

 to a number of new forms of later discovery, contains 

 all the genera that Artedi classified under his Order of 

 that name, with the exception only of two, the mullet 

 and stickleback genera. 



Among these four Orders of Fishes Artedi distrib- 

 utes 45 Genera, which he also defines, shortly indeed in 

 general, but at the same time clearly and distinctly. 

 On the whole, these Genera, as classified by Artedi, ful- 

 fil the demands he laid down for naturalness, for, al- 

 though most of them have suffered subdivision into two 

 or more new genera, owing to the great strides Ichthy- 

 ology has made since that time, they nevertheless then 

 represented natural groups of forms bearing affinity 

 one to another. Hence it must be acknowledged that 

 Artedi's System of Fishes proved in practice to be of 

 sound scientific conception; here and in the following 

 section of his work opportunity was afforded him of 

 putting into application the rules which he had drawn 

 up for nomenclature, etc. 



The fourth part of Artedi's "Ichthyologia" is called 

 "Synonymia Nomium Piscium". In it, as Gunther truly 

 remarks, references to all previous authors are arranged 

 for every species, very much in the same manner as 

 is adopted in the systematic works of the present day; 

 these references and quotations are inserted under the 

 diagnosis of each several species, entailing for the author 

 a vast amount of labour, as Linnaeus had occasion to 



