174 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP 



Enumeration of the Fish described and figured by Parra, scientifically named 

 by Felipe Poey. 



Antonio Parra was born in Portugal, and I believe resided in Havana for a 

 long time, where he was probably naturalized, for he dedicates his work to the 

 King of Spain, and sent the objects he described to the Museum of Natural 

 History of Madrid. He printed in this last city, irrl799, at the printing office 

 of the Viuda de Ibarra, a pamphlet in 8vo. entitled : Discurso sobre los medios de 

 connaturalizar y propagar en España los Cedros de la Habana y otros arboles, 

 asi de construcción como de Maderas curiosas y frutales. At page 21 is " an account 

 of the different trees of the Island of Cuba, which contains 267 species and 20 

 Palms," and at page 30 a "notice of some kinds of hard wood which are in the 

 Island, their colors, the localities where they are found and their uses." The 

 author describes them in popular terms only. 



The first important work of Parra is the one printed at Havana in 1787, at 

 the printing office of the Capitania General, in square 8vo., under the title Descrip- 

 ción de diferentes piezas de Historia Natural, las mas del ramo marítimo, representa- 

 das en setenta y cinco laminas. This number of plates includes two of ornamental 

 stands and two of a negro suffering from a greatly developed hernia. In some 

 copies there is a second title, engraved, containing the words Peces y Crustá- 

 ceos de la Isla de Cuba.* It contains 40 plates of Fishes, representing 71 species, of 

 which 3 belong to Florida; there are 17 plates of crustácea, the rest represent- 

 ing turtles, zoophytes and minerals. 



The figures were probably drawn by the son of Antonio Parra; he also en- 

 graved them and colored some of the copies. The edition has long since been ex- 

 hausted. One copy is in the library of the Economic Society, another is owned 

 by M. Domingo de Arozarena, and M. Leonardo del Monte has the third. All 

 the objects figured, including the negro with the hernia, are deposited in the 

 Museum of Madrid, and have been of help in settling some serious doubts by 

 the assistance of the present director of the Museum, M. Mariano de la Paz 

 Graells.f 



The work cites no authors, contains no classification, no scientific terms, and 

 the names are all popular ones. It is easily seen that Parra has studied no 

 books except the great book of nature ; by his own natural gifts he has succeed- 

 ed in describing and figuring objects as correctly as his cotemporaries, and even 

 surpasses Bloch in the exactness of his figures. Cuvier says, "it is one of the 

 most useful works in the study of the fishes of the Gulf of Mexico, not only 

 on account of the text, but also on account of the very exact figures represent- 

 ing them." 



Parra does not omit describing the teeth of the jaws, the asperities of the 

 scales, nor even the spinous rays of the dorsal fin and the furrow in which they 

 can be hidden. He dwells more especially on the number and the peculiari- 

 ties of the fins, and he cannot be reproached for omitting in his descriptions de- 

 tails that are shown in his figures. He observed, very properly, that the colora 

 are less important than the rest of the organism, for he only treats of them 

 last. To be sure he neglects the palatine teeth, the spines of the operculum, 

 the denticulations of the preoperculum, the exact number of the spinous and 

 soft rays, but this is not surprising in one who preceded Cuvier and Valenciennes, 



*My copy has an engraved frontispiece representing two tritons raising a net full of fish near a 

 rock, with a label inscribed, Lahore, et Constardia. — J. C. Brevoort. 



f In the United States, copies are known to be in the libraries of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, in the late Dr. DeKay's, in the Astor Library and in my own,— this last a colored one.— J .C.B 



[June, 



