Mr YarrelFs History of British Fishes. 385 
wonderful, most wonderful in structure, that swarm in the expanse 
of the mighty waters which are placed on the surface of the world. 
And will it not be accounted strange, then, that it has only been 
since the commencement of the present century, that the study of 
this interesting and important class of living creatures has really re- 
ceived an impulse, and has begun to be examined by the same prin- 
ciples and careful analysis to which the other sections are subjected. 
Looking to the early literature of the science generally, we have 
various writers, of as varied fame and talents, touching upon the 
natures of fish in their historyes and poetry ; but they were more 
taken up with the dieteticks of the art, than with the structure of 
the creatures. So was it also in the olden time of British story. The 
stews and vivaries occupied the most attention, and in the record of 
an accurate and quaint historian, "as every water hath a sundrie mix- 
ture, and therefore is not stored with every kind, so there is almost no 
house, even of the meanest tounes, which have not one or mo ponds 
or holes made for reservation of water instored with some of them, 
as with tench, carpe, breame, roach, dace, eeles, or such like, as will 
live and breed together."* The middle of the sixteenth century, 
perhaps, affords us the first names which can be quoted as scientific. 
Belon, Rondolet, and Salvianus are sufficiently known. Between 
the dates of the works of these authors, te nearly the middle of 
1600, we find many which have treated partially of Ichthyology ; and 
about the same period, the compilation of Johnson gave a kind of 
new zest to the subject in this country. Two British names, how- 
ever, of the same age, but a few years later, did more for the ad- 
vance of the science than all which had been previously achieved, 
more, perhaps, every thing considered, than has even since been ac- 
complished. Reducing from a chaos the observations of their prede- 
cessors, they produced an arrangement which has allowed their fol- 
lowers to re-arrange with comparative facility, and which, in fact, 
constitutes the basis of the systems which were afterwards proposed, 
while their descriptions of formerly known or newly observed species 
are characterized with a greater degree of accuracy. It will easily 
be perceived that we allude to Willoughby and Ray, names insepa- 
rable from each other, and from the history of British Ichthyology. 
From the date of the works of these excellent men to the middle 
of 1700, there appears a wide gap, so far as the literature of the 
* Holinshed, Hist, of England. The necessity of having a regular supply of 
fish during Lent and other Catholic holidays, may account for the remarkable 
attention paid to the breeding of them in these early times. 
