INTRODUCTION. 



While engaged in the study of the Cape Algce, my 

 attention was almost imperceptibly directed to the Fishes 

 that inhabit our bays. This branch of Colonial Natural 

 History, I knew from experience, had hitherto been 

 but little cultivated, and I thought it worth while, to 

 arrange scientifically those species at least, which are 

 used as food, and, to a considerable extent, form an 

 article of trade. 



In publishing this ichthyological essay, I am fully 

 aware, that I venture on a path, hardly trodden before 

 in this Colony. It will therefore contain defects here- 

 after to be corrected, especially as I have been unable to 

 refer to, and compare, some of the standard works on 

 Ichthyology; my chief guide having been personal 

 observation, the accounts of the fishermen, and, above all, 

 nature herself. 



The principal South African travellers, such as Sparr- 

 mann, Thunberg, Barrow, Lichtenstein, and Burch- 

 ell, although their many discoveries in the field of Natural 

 Science, secured for them a well-merited rank amongst 

 Naturalists, appear to have paid little or no attention to 

 the cold denizens of the deep, and it was only in later 

 years that this part of our Fauna became the subject of 

 observation and study. Amongst the learned, that took 

 a lively interest in South African Ichthyology, Messrs. 

 Quoy and Gaymard, attached to the French Corvette 

 /' Uranie, Capt. Freycinet, stand foremost ; for during 

 their stay at the Cape in 181 8, they were busily engaged, 

 collecting specimens of the various fishes caught in its 

 bavs, for the Museum of Natural History of France, 



