ON ICHTHYOLOGY IN GENERAL. 
5 
The names again which have been bestowed on 
fishes and on the groups into which they are collected, 
being generally derived from the Greek, have a for- 
midable aspect. This difficulty, however, soon wears 
off ; and when the meaning of the terms become 
known, they afford in many cases a valuable aid in 
remembering the chief characteristic of the group or 
species. 
Who, I would ask, finds any difficulty in re- 
membering such terms as u Fuchsia,” u Geranium,” 
or u Hippopotamus,” which they are accustomed to? 
Few harder words than these are to be met with in 
Ichthyology. 
(N.B. A useful little word to be familiar with is the 
Greek u Ichthys,” a fish, which forms part of many 
names, and has rather an uncompromising look about 
it.) 
Now, however, that the foundation, so to speak, 
has been firmly laid, there is no longer the necessity, 
in discussing the fishes of a well explored region, 
for instance, the fresh-water fishes of the Indian 
peninsular, of overloading our descriptions with a 
mass of technical terms. We need no longer work 
from the particular to the general, and describe each 
species so minutely as to enable a classifier to assign 
to it its place among the families and genera of fishes. 
This work has all been done for us by previous 
explorers, and the time has now fully arrived that 
we can afford to start from general principles, and 
lead the student by natural stages to recognize apart 
