41 
find out when editing the work, for ARTEDI had not 
quite finished off the copying of them in. The laborious- 
ness of the task becomes patent to all, when it is known 
that ARTEDI was so conscientious that he went back 
even to the ancient Greek and Latin writers, and en- 
deavoured to elucidate what they may have meant by 
their varied and diverse nomenclature and by other state- 
ments concerning certain fishes. More than 150 forms 
have been dealt with in that thorough-going style, the 
quotations under each one often exceeding a score in 
number. ARTEDI'S "Synonymia", consequently, bears 
witness in its author not only to an exceptional capa- 
city for arduous toil and a deep and wide reading, but 
also to a rare degree of critical acumen and exactitude. 
For that reason the work forms a practically indispens- 
able key to the earliest ichthyological literature. 
The fifth and last section of the "Ichthyologia" bears 
the title "Descriptiones Specierum Piscium quos vivos 
praesertim dissecuit et examinavit". Of this section 
LINNAEUS writes in his Introduction to it as follows: - 
"You would, indeed, have been amazed, courteous 
Reader, could you have watched with what persistency, 
with what never wearying toil, the author of this work 
proceeded about his self-imposed task of describing his 
fishes, spending in many cases several whole days over 
one single fish. Had you been in that fortunate posi- 
tion, you would have been witness to the wonderfully 
adroit way in which he would count over the fins, and 
the individual rays in them, not once only but many 
times, and to the method he had of enumerating and 
giving an account of all and each of the dorsal verte- 
bra -". LINN^US also informs us that the ma- 
terial examined for the purpose of ARTEDI'S descriptions 
was derived in part from Lake Malaren, in part from 
Norrland waters and the North Sea, and in part also 
from the seas off the English coasts and out of the 
museums to which he obtained access. Altogether 
there were 72 forms which he found opportunity to 
examine and accurately to describe. He was not con- 
Peter Artedi. 4 
