432 
SCIENTIFIC REVIEWS. 
Histoire Naturelle des Poissons. Par M. LE Baron Cuvier, et 
ar M. VALENCIENNES. Paris. Levrault. Tom. 1, 2, 3, et 4. 
1829. 
Some branches of science connected with the moral and religious 
traditions of former nations, have advanced with the intellect of 
man, and run the same career as civilization,—shining with a new 
light in times of peace and prosperity, and sinking into neglect 
in the dark ages, or during the political struggles in which the po- 
pulous hordes of hardy nations descended in torrents to invade hap- 
pier climes, where the Muses held an academic sway, and culti- 
vated intellect erected temples to science ;—others, claiming no 
further attention than the necessity in which they originated, re- 
mained a long time stationary. As the products of the chace would 
vary with the country, so different shores, and the habitable banks 
of large rivers, would furnish fish of different kinds to the indus- 
trious natives, but comparisons would never have been instituted 
between the productions of opposite climes ; and while the art of 
fishing would have received many improvements with the increased 
stability of nations, it was not till the ambitious Greeks extended 
their empire, that ichthyology became a science. In subsequent 
times, the poets of voluptuous Rome celebrated the treasures which 
the ocean had yielded up to pander the patrician’s appetite. As the 
various tribes descended from the high plains, following the course of 
the rivers, and spreading themselves along the banks of the Hoan- 
Ho, the Ganges, the Euphrates, or the Nile, their attention would na- 
turally be called to animals inhabiting a different element,—cu- 
rious in their structure and habits, and demanding more immediate 
attention from their economical uses ; and thus it is quite probable 
that the knowledge which the Chinese and Javanese had accumu- 
lated on the scaly inhabitants of their rivers and seas, was derived 
from the same experience of an olden time as was transmitted by 
the Egyptians to the Phenicians, and from them to the Greeks, 
The period between this first progress of knowledge in nations’ 
who outstripped their contemporaries in civilization and in learn- 
ing, and the time when Aristotle, following the victorious arms of 
his pupil, was furnished with every assistance in the accumulation 
of facts, and at once gave a scientific form to the materials of for- 
mer ages, and, with the giant grasp of genius, partly uplifted the 
veil of organization, forms one of the most important eras in the 
history of ichthyology. From that period to the days of Cuvier,— 
who has concentrated the whole knowledge, which long and able 
study of the animal kingdom has given to the modern historians, 
of the structure and affinities of the varied forms of animal 
life, on the neglected unknown inhabitants of the waters,—the 
progress of the science has been constant but slow; not per- 
