FOOTNOTES:

[147] Key to North American Birds.

[CHAPTER XXII]
THE HISTORY OF ICHTHYOLOGY

Science consists of human experience, tested and placed in order. The science of ichthyology represents our knowledge of fishes, derived from varied experiences of man, tested by methods or instruments of precision and arranged in orderly sequence. This science, in common with every other, is the work of many persons, each in his own field, and each contributing a series of facts, a series of tests of the alleged facts of others, or some improvement in the method of arrangement. As in other branches of science, this work has been done by sincere, devoted men, impelled by a love for this kind of labor, and having in view, as "the only reward they asked, a grateful remembrance of their work." And in token of this reward it is well sometimes, in grateful spirit, to go over the names of those who made even its present stage of completeness possible.

We may begin the history of ichthyology with that of so many others of the sciences, with the work of Aristotle (383-322 B.C.). This wonderful observer recorded many facts concerning the structure and habits of the fishes of Greece, and in almost every case his actual observation bears the closest modern test. These observations were hardly "set in order." The number of species he knew was small, about 118 in all, and it did not occur to him that they needed classification. His ideas of species were those of the fishermen, and the local vernacular supplied him with the only names needed in his records.

As Dr. Günther wisely observes, "It is less surprising that Aristotle should have found so many truths as that none of his followers should have added to them." For nearly 1800 years the scholars of the times copied the words of Aristotle, confusing them by the addition of fabulous stories and foolish superstitions, never going back to nature herself, "who leads us to absolute truth whenever we wander." A few observations were made by Caius Plinius, Claudius Ælianus, Athenæus and others. Theophrastus (370-270 B.C.) wrote on the fishes which may live out of water. About 400 A.D., Decius Magnus Ausonius wrote a pleasing little poem on the Moselle, setting forth the merits of its various fishes. It was not, however, until the middle of the seventeenth century that any advance was made in the knowledge of fishes. At that time the development of scholarship among the nations of Europe was such that a few wise men were able to grasp the idea of species.

In 1553, Pierre Bélon (1518-64) published his octavo volume of 448 pages, entitled "De Aquatilibus," in which numerous (110) species of fishes of the Mediterranean were described, with tolerable figures, and with these is a creditable attempt at classification. At about this time Ulysses Aldrovandi, of Bologna, founded the first museum of natural history and wrote on the fishes it contained. In 1554-58, Ippolito Salviani (1513-72), a physician at Rome, published a work entitled "Aquatilium Animalium Historia," with good figures of most of the species, together with much general information as to the value and habits of animals of the sea.

More important than these, but almost simultaneous with them, is the great work of Guillaume Rondelet (1507-57), "De Piscibus Marinus" (1554-55), at first written in Latin, later translated into French and enlarged under other titles. In this work, 244 different species, chiefly from the Mediterranean, are fairly described, and the various fables previously current are subjected to severe scrutiny. Recognizable woodcuts represent the different species. Classification, Rondelet had none, except as simple categories for purposes of convenience. More than usual care is given to the vernacular names, French and Greek. He closes his book with these words:

"Or s'il en i a qui prennent les choses tant à la rigueur, qui ne veulent rien apparouver qui ne soit du tout parfait, je les prie de bien bon cueur de traiter telle, ou quelque autre histoire parfaitement, sans qu'il i ait chose quelconque à redire et la receverons é haut louerons bien vouluntiers. Cependant je scai bien, et me console . . . avec grand travail . . . qu'on pourra trouver plusieurs bones choses e dignes de louange ou proufit é contentement des homes studieux é à l'honneur é grandissime admiration des tres excellens é perfaits œuvres de Dieu."

And with the many "bones choses" of the work of Rondelet, men were too long satisfied, and it was not until the impulse of commerce had brought them face to face with new series of animals not found in the Mediterranean that the work of investigating fishes was again resumed. About 1640, Prince Moritz (Maurice) of Nassau (1604-79) visited Brazil, taking with him two physicians, Georg Marcgraf (1610-44) and Wilhelm Piso. In the great work "Historia Naturalis Brasiliæ," published at Leyden (1648), Marcgraf described about one hundred species, all new to science, under Portuguese names and with a good deal of spirit and accuracy. This work was printed by Piso after Marcgraf's death, and his colored drawings—long afterward used by Bloch—are in the "History of Brazil" reduced to small and crude woodcuts. This is the first study of a local fish fauna outside the Mediterranean region and it reflects great credit on Marcgraf and on the illustrious prince whose assistant he was.

There were no other similar attempts of importance in ichthyology for a hundred years, when Per Osbeck, an enthusiastic student of Linnæus, published (1757) the records of his cruise to China, under the name of "Iter Chinensis." At about the same time another of Linnæus' students, Fredrik Hasselquist, published, in his "Iter Palestinum" the account of his discoveries of fishes in Palestine and Egypt. More pretentious than these and of much value as an early record is Mark Catesby's (1679-1749) "Natural History of Carolina and the Bahamas," published in 1749, with large colored plates which are fairly correct except in those cases in which the drawing was made from memory.

At about the same time, Hans Sloane (1660-1752) published his large volume on the "Fishes of Jamaica," Patrick Browne (1720-90) wrote on the fishes of the same region, while Father Charles Plumier (1646-1704) made paintings of the fishes of Martinique, long after used by Bloch and Lacépède. Dr. Alexander Garden (1730-91), of Charleston, S. C., collected fishes for Linnæus, as did also Dr. Pehr Kalm in his travels in the northern parts of the American colonies.

With the revival of interest in general anatomy several naturalists took up the structure of fishes. Among these Günther mentions Borelli, Malpighi, Swammerdam, and Duverney. Other anatomists of later dates were Albrecht von Heller (1708-77), Peter Camper (1722-89), Felix Vicq d'Azyr (1748-94), and Alexander Monro (1783).

The basis of classification was first fairly recognized by John Ray (1628-1705) and Francis Willughby (1635-72), who, with other and varied scientific labors, undertook, in the "Historia Piscium," published in Oxford in 1686, to bring order out of the confusion left by their predecessors. This work, edited by Ray after Willughby's death, is ostensibly the work of Willughby with additions by Ray. In this work 420 species were recorded, 180 of which were actually examined by the authors, and the arrangement chosen by them pointed the way to a final system of nomenclature.

Direct efforts in this direction, with a fairly clear recognition of genera as well as species, were made by Lorenz Theodor Gronow, called Gronovius, a German naturalist of much acumen, and by Jacob Theodor Klein (1685-1757), whose work, "Historic Naturalis Piscium," published about 1745, is of less importance, not being much of an advance over the catalogue of Rondelet.

Far greater than any of these investigators, and earlier than either Klein or Gronow, was he who has been justly called the Father of Ichthyology, Petrus (Peter) Artedi (1705-35). Artedi was born in Sweden. He was a fellow student of Linnæus at Upsala, and he devoted his short life wholly to the study of fishes. He went to Holland to examine the collection of East and West Indian fishes of a rich Dutch merchant in Amsterdam named Albert Seba, and there at the age of twenty-nine he was, by accident, drowned in one of the Dutch canals. "His manuscripts were fortunately rescued by an Englishman, Cliffort," and they were edited and published by Linnæus in a series of five parts or volumes.

Artedi divided the class of fishes into orders, and these orders again into genera, the genera into species. The name of each species consisted of that of the genus with a descriptive phrase attached. This cumbersome system, called polynomial, used by Artedi, Gronow, Klein, and others, was a great advance on the shifting vernacular, of which it now took the place. But the polynomial method as a system was of short duration. Linnæus soon substituted for it the convenient, in fact inevitable binomial system which has now endured for 150 years, and which with certain modifications must form the permanent substructure of the nomenclature in systematic zoology and botany.

The genera of Artedi are in almost all cases natural groups, corresponding essentially equivalent to the families of to-day. Families in ichthyology were first clearly recognized and defined by Cuvier.

The following is a list of Artedi's genera and their arrangement:

ORDER MALACOPTERYGII.

ORDER ACANTHOPTERYGII.

ORDER BRANCHIOSTEGI.

ORDER CHONDROPTERYGII.

In all 47 genera and 230 species of fishes were known from the whole world in 1738.

The cetaceans, or whales, constitute a fifth order, Plagiuri, in Artedi's scheme.

As examples of the nomenclature of species I may quote:

"Zeus ventre aculeato, cauda in extremo circinata." This polynomial expression was shortened by Linnæus to Zeus faber. The species was called by Rondelet "Faber sive Gallus Marinus" and by other authors "Piscis Jovii." "Jovii" suggested Zeus to Artedi, and Rondelet's name faber became the specific name.

"Anarhichas Lupus marinus nostras." This became with Linnæus "Anarhichas lupus."

"Clupea, maxilla inferiore longiore, maculis nigris carens: Harengus vel Chalcis Auctorum, Herring vel Hering Anglis, Germanis Belgis." This became Clupea harengus in the convenient binomial system of Linnæus.

The great naturalist of the eighteenth century, Carl von Linné, known academically as Carolus Linnæus, was the early associate and close friend of Artedi, and from Artedi he obtained practically all his knowledge of fishes. Linnæus, professor in the University of Upsala and for a time its rector, primarily a botanist, was a man of wonderful erudition, and his great strength lay in his skill in the orderly arrangement of things. In his lifetime, his greatest work, the "Systema Naturæ," passed through twelve editions. In the tenth edition, in 1758, the binomial system of nomenclature was first consistently applied to all animals. For this reason most naturalists use the date of its publication as the beginning of zoological nomenclature, although the English naturalists have generally preferred the more complete twelfth edition, published in 1766. This difference in the recognized starting-point has been often a source of confusion, as in several cases the names of species were needlessly changed by Linnæus and given differently in the twelfth edition. In taxonomy it is not nearly so important that a name be pertinent or even well chosen as that it be stable. In changing his own established names, the father of classification set a bad example to his successors, one which they did not fail to follow.

In Linnæus' system (tenth and twelfth editions) all of Artedi's genera were retained save Lepturus, which name was changed to Trichiurus. The following new genera were added: Chimæra, Tetraodon, Diodon, Centriscus, Pegasus, Callionymus, Uranoscopus, Cepola, Mullus, Teuthis, Loricaria, Fistularia, Atherina, Mormyrus, Polynemus, Amia, Elops. The classification was finally much altered: the Chondropterygia and Branchiostegi (with Syngnathus) being called Amphibia Nantes, and divided into two groups—Spiraculis compositis and Spiraculis solitariis. The other fishes were more naturally distributed according to the position of the ventral fins into Pisces Apodes, Jugulares, Thoracici, and Abdominales. The Apodes of Linnæus do not form a homogeneous group, as members of various distinct groups have lost their ventral fins in the process of evolution. But the Jugulares, the Thoracici, and the Abdominales must be kept as valid categories in any natural system.

Linnæus' contributions to zoology consisted mainly of the introduction of his most ingenious and helpful system of bookkeeping. By it naturalists of all lands were able to speak of the same species by the same name in whatever tongue. Unfortunately, ignorance, carelessness, and perversity brought about a condition of confusion. For a long period many species were confounded under one name. This source of confusion began with Linnæus himself. On the other hand, even with Linnæus, the same species often appeared under several different names; in this matter it was not the system of naming which was at fault. It was the lack of accurate knowledge, and sometimes the lack of just and conscientious dealing with the work of other men. No system of naming can go beyond the knowledge on which it rests. Ignorance of fact produces confusion in naming. The earlier naturalists had no conception of the laws of geographical distribution. The "Indies," East or West, were alike to them, and "America" or "India" or "Africa" was a sufficiently exact record of the origin of any specimen.

Moreover, no thought of the geological past of groups and species had yet arisen, and without the conception of common origin, the facts of homology had no significance. All classification was simply a matter of arbitrary pigeon-holing the records of forms, rather than an expression of actual blood relationship. To this confusion much was added through love of novelty. Different authors changed names to suit their personal tastes regardless of rights of priority. Amia was altered to Amiatus by Rafinesque in 1815 because it was too short a name. Hiodon was changed to Amphiodon because it sounded too much like Diodon, Batrachoides to Batrictius because βατράχος means a frog, not a fish, and other changes even more wanton were introduced, to be condemned and discarded by the more methodical workers of a later period. With all its abuses, however, the binomial nomenclature made possible systematic zoology and botany, and with the "Systema Naturæ" arose a new era in the science of living organisms.

In common with most naturalists of his day, the spirit of Linnæus was essentially a devout one. Admiration for the wonderful works of God was breathed on almost every page. "O Jehovah! quam ampla sunt opera Tua" is on the title-page of the "Systema Naturæ," and the inscription over the door of his home at Hammarby was to Linnæus the wisdom of his life. This inscription read: "Innocue vivito: Numen adest" (Live blameless: God is here).

The followers of Linnæus are divided into two classes, explorers and compilers. To the first class belonged his own students and others who ransacked all lands for species to be added to the lists of the "Systema Naturæ." Those men, mostly Scandinavian and Dutch, worked with wonderful zeal, enduring every hardship and making great contributions to knowledge, which they published in more or less satisfactory forms. To these men we owe the beginnings of the science of geographical distribution. Among the most notable of these are Pehr Osbeck and Fredrik Hasselquist, already noted; Otto Fabricius (1744-1822), author of an excellent "Fauna of Greenland"; Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-), successor of Linnæus as rector of the University of Upsala, who collected fishes about Nagasaki, intrusting most of the descriptive work to the less skillful hands of his students, Jonas Nicolas Ahl and Martin Houttuyn; Martin Th. Brünnich, who collected at Marseilles the materials for his "Pisces Massiliensis"; Petrus Forskål (1736-63), whose work on the fishes of the Red Sea ("Descriptio Animalium," etc.), published posthumously in 1775, is one of the most accurate of faunal lists, and one which shows a fine feeling for taxonomic distinctions scarcely traceable in any previous author. Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-45), naturalist of Bering's expedition, gathered amid incredible hardships the first knowledge of the fishes of Alaska and Siberia, his notes being printed after his tragic death, by Pallas and Krascheninnikov. Petrus Simon Pallas (1741-1811) gives the account of his travels in the North Pacific in his most valuable volumes, "Zoographia Russo-Asiatica"; Johann Georg Gmelin (1709-55) with Samuel Theophilus Gmelin (1745-84), and Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745-91), like Steller, crossed Siberia, recording its animals. Johann David Schöpf (1752-1800), a Hessian surgeon stationed at Long Island in the Revolutionary War, gave an excellent account of the fishes about New York.

Still other naturalists accompanied navigators around the globe, collecting specimens and information as opportunity offered. John Reinhold Forster (1729-98), with his son, John George Adam Forster (1754-94), and Daniel Solander (1736-81), a student of Linnæus, and Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), sailed with Captain James Cook. Philibert Commerson (1727-73) accompanied the explorer, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, and furnished nearly all the original material used by Lacépède. Other noted travelers of the early days were Pierre Sonnerat and Mungo Park.

Still other naturalists, scarcely less useful, gave detailed accounts of the fauna of their own native regions. Ablest of these was Anatole Risso, an apothecary of Nice, who published in 1810 the "Ichthyologie de Nice," an excellent work, afterward (1826) expanded by him into a "Histoire Naturelle de l'Europe Méridionalé."

Contemporary with Risso was a man of very different character, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), who wrote at Palermo in 1810 his "Caratteri di Alcuni Nuovi Generi" and his "Ittiologia Siciliana." Later he went to America, where he was for a time professor in the Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky. Brilliant, erudite, irresponsible, fantastic, he wrote of the fishes of Sicily and later ("Ichthyologia Ohiensis," 1820) of the fishes of the Ohio River, with wide knowledge, keen taxonomic insight, and a hopeless disregard of the elementary principles of accuracy. Always eager for novelties, restless and credulous, his writings have been among the most difficult to interpret of any in ichthyology.

Earlier than Risso and Rafinesque, Thomas Pennant (1726-58) wrote of the British fishes; Otto Fredrik Müller of the fishes of Denmark; J. E. Gunner, Bishop of Thröndhjem, of fishes of Norway; Francis Valentijn (1660-1730), Jan Nieuhof (1600-1671), Renard, and Castour of the fishes of the Dutch East Indies; Duhamel du Monceau of the fisheries of France; Francesco Cette of the fishes of Sicily; José Cornide of the fishes of Spain; Ignacio Molina of the fishes of Chile; and Meidinger of those of Austria. Some of these writers lived before Linnæus. Others knew little of the Linnæan system, and their records are generally in the vernacular. Most important of this class is the work of Antonio Parra, "Descripcion de Diferentes Piezas de Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba," published in Havana in 1787. In 1803, Patrick Russell gave a valuable account, non-binomial, of "Two Hundred Fishes Collected at Vizagapatam and on the Coast of Coromandel."

Papers on the fishes of Bering Sea and Japan by Wilhelm Theophilus Tilesius (1775-1835), are published in the transactions of the early societies of Russia. The collections of the traveler Krusenstern were recorded by Tilesius. Stephen Krascheninnikov (1786) wrote a history of Russia in Asia.

Other notable names among the early writers are those of Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet, of Montpelier, whose work (1780), too soon cut short, showed marked promise; Fr. Faber, who wrote of the fishes of Iceland; E. Blyth, who studied the fishes of the Andamans; A. G. Desmarest, who made excellent studies of the fishes of Cuba; J. T. Kölreuter and Everard Home in the East Indies; Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, who recorded the fishes of Egypt at the command of Napoleon. Others equally notable were B. A. Euphrasen, Iwan Lepechin (1750-1802), John Latham, W. E. Leach, George Montagu, C. Quensel, Jean-Antoine Scopoli, Peter Ascanius, Francois Etienne de la Roche (1789-1812), Hans Ström, M. Vahl and Zuieuw.

The compilers who followed Linnæus belonged to a wholly different class. These were men of extensive learning, methodical ways, sometimes brilliant, occasionally of deep insight, but more often, on the whole, dull, plodding, and mechanical.

Earliest of those is Antoine Gouan, whose "Historia Piscium" was published in Paris in 1770. In this work, which is of fair quality, only genera were included, and the three new ones which he introduces into the "System" (Lepadogaster, Lepidopus, and Trachypterus) are still retained with his definition of them.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748-1804), a relative of the explorers of Siberia, published in 1788 a thirteenth edition of the "Systema Naturæ" of Linnæus, adding to it the discoveries of Forskål, Forster, and others who had written since Linnæus' time. This work was useful as bringing the compilation of Linnæus to a later date, but it is not well done, the compiler having little knowledge of the animals described and little penetration in matters of taxonomy. Very similar in character, although more lucid in expression, is the French compilation of the same date (1788), "Tableau Encyclopédique et Méthodique des Trois Règnes de la Nature," by the Abbé J. P. Bonnaterre. Another volume of the "Encyclopédie Méthodique," of still less merit, was published as a dictionary in Paris in 1787 by Réné Just Haüy. Another dictionary in 1817 even poorer was the work of Hippolyte Cloquet.

In 1792, Johann Julius Walbaum (1721-1800), a German compiler of a little higher rank, gathered together the records of all known species, using the work of Artedi as a basis and giving binominal names in place of the vernacular terms used by Schöpf, Steller, Pennant, and Krascheninnikov.

Far more pretentious and more generally useful, as well as containing a large amount of original material, is the "Ichthyologia" of Mark Eliezer Bloch, published in Berlin in various parts from 1782 to 1785. It was originally in German and divided into two portions—"Oeconomische Naturgeschichte der Fische Deutschlands" and "Naturgeschichte der auslandischen Fische." Bloch was a Jewish physician, born at Anspach in 1723, and at the age of fifty-six began to devote himself to ichthyology. In his great work is contained every species which he had himself seen, every one which he could purchase from collections, and every one of which he could find drawings made by others.

That part which relates to the fishes of Germany is admirably done. In the treatment of East Indian and American fishes there is much guesswork and many errors of description and of fact, for which the author was not directly responsible. To learn to interpret the personal equation in the systematic work of other men is one of the most delicate of taxonomic arts.

After the publication of these great folio volumes of plates, Dr. Bloch began a systematic catalogue to include all known species. This was published after his death by his collaborator, the philologist, Dr. Johann Gottlob Schneider. This work, "M. E. Blochii Systema Ichthyologia," contains 1519 species of fishes, and is the most creditable compilation subsequent to the death of Linnæus.

Even more important than the work of Bloch is that of the Comte de La Cépède, who became with the progress of the French Revolution, "Citoyen Lacépède," his original full name being Bernard Germain Etienne de la Ville-sur-Illon, Comte de La Cépède. His great work, "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," was published originally in five volumes, in Paris, from 1798 to 1803. It was brought out under great difficulties, his materials being scattered, his country in a constant tumult. For original material he depended largely on the collections and sagacious notes of the traveler Commerson. Dr. Gill sums up the strength and weakness of Lacépède's work in these terms:

"A work by an able man and eloquent writer even prone to aid rhetoric by the aid of the imagination in absence of desirable facts, but which because of undue confidence in others, default of comparison of material from want thereof and otherwise, and carelessness generally is entirely unreliable."

The work of Lacépède had a great influence upon subsequent investigators, especially in France. A considerable number of the numerous new genera of Rafinesque were founded on divisions made in the analytical keys of Lacépède.

Bernard Germain de Lacépède.

Georges Dagobert Cuvier.

Louis Agassiz.

Johannes Müller.

In 1803 and 1804, Dr. George Shaw published in London his "General Zoology," the fishes forming part of volumes IV and V. This is a poor compilation, the part concerning the fishes being mostly extracted from Bloch and Lacépède. Another weak compilation for the supposed use of students was the "Ichthyologie Analytique" of A. M. Constant Duméril. About 1815, Henri Ducrotay de Blainville wrote the "Faune Française" and contributed important studies to the taxonomy of sharks.

With Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (1769-1832) and the "Règne Animal arrangé aprés son Organization" (1817; 1829-30) we have the beginning of a new era in ichthyology. This period is characterized by a recognition of the existence of a natural classification inevitable in proportion to the exactness of our knowledge, because based on the principles of morphology. The "Règne Animal" is, in the history of ichthyology, not less important than the "Systema Naturæ" itself, and from it dates practically our knowledge of families of fishes and the interrelations of the different groups. The great facts of homology were clearly understood by Cuvier. Their significance as indications of lines of descent were never grasped by him, and this notwithstanding the fact that Cuvier was almost the first to bring extinct forms into proper relations with those now living.

Dr. Günther well says that the investigation of anatomy of fishes was continued by Cuvier until he had succeeded in completing so perfect a framework of the system of the whole class that his immediate successors could content themselves with filling up those details for which their master had no leisure. Indefatigable in examining all the external and internal characters of the fishes of a rich collection, he ascertained the natural affinities of the infinite variety of fishes, and accurately defined the divisions, orders, families, and genera of the class as they appear in the two original editions of the "Règne Animal." His industry equaled his genius; he opened connections with almost every accessible part of the globe; not only French travelers and naturalists, but also Germans, Englishmen, Americans rivaled one another to assist him with collections; and for many years the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes was the Center where all ichthyological treasures were deposited. Thus Cuvier brought together a collection the like of which had never been seen before, and which, as it contains all the materials on which his labors were based, must still be considered to be one of the most important in existence.

"Those little low rooms, five in number" (in the museum of the Jardin des Plantes), "they should be the Mecca of scientific devotees. Perhaps every great zoologist of the past hundred years has sat in them and discussed those problems of life which are always inviting solution and are never solved. The spirits of great naturalists still haunt these corridors and speak from the specimens their hands have set in order." (Theodore Lyman.)

Cuvier's studies of the different species of fishes are contained in the great "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," the joint work of Cuvier and his pupil and successor, Achille Valenciennes (1794-1865). Of this work 22 volumes were published, from 1828 to 1849, containing 4514 nominal species, the greater portion being written after the death of Cuvier (1832). The work was finally left unfinished on account of a disagreement with the publisher. Dr. Gill tells me that at this time Valenciennes made an unsuccessful appeal to the Smithsonian Institution for assistance in the publication of the remaining chapters.

This is a most masterly work, indispensable to the student of fishes. Its descriptions are generally fairly correct, its plates accurate, and its judgments trustworthy. But with all this it is very unequal. Too often nominal species are based on variations due to age or sex or to the conditions of preservation of specimens. Many of the species are treated very lightly by Cuvier; many of the descriptions of Valenciennes are very mechanical, as though the author had grown weary of the endless process, "a failing commonly observed among zoologists when attention to descriptive details becomes to them a tedious task."

After the death of Valenciennes (1865) Dr. Auguste Duméril began another Natural History of the Fishes. Of this two volumes (1865-70) were published covering sharks, ganoids, and other fishes not treated by Cuvier and Valenciennes, his category beginning at the opposite end of the fish series. The death of Duméril left this catalogue also unfinished. Duméril's work is useful and carefully done, but his excessive trust in slight differences has filled his book with nominal species. Thus among the living ganoid fishes he recognizes 135 species, the actual number being not far from 40.

We may anticipate the sequence of time by here referring to the remaining attempts at a record of all the fishes in the world, Dr. Albert C. L. G. Günther, a naturalist of German birth, but resident in London for many years, long the honored keeper of the British Museum, published in eight volumes the "Catalogue of the Fishes of the British Museum," from 1859 to 1870. In this monumental work, the one work most essential to all systematic study of fishes, 6843 species are described and 1682 doubtful species are mentioned. The book is a remarkable example of patient industry. Its great merits are at once apparent, and those of us engaged in the same line of study may pass by its faults with the leniency which we may hope that posterity may bestow on ours.

The publication of this work gave an immediate impetus to the study of fishes. The number of known species has been raised from 9000 to about 12,000 in the last thirty years, although meanwhile some hundreds of species even accepted by the conservatism of Günther have been erased from the system.

A new edition of this work has been long in contemplation, and in 1898 the first volume of it, covering the percoid fishes, was published by Dr. George Albert Boulenger. This volume is one of the most satisfactory in the history of ichthyology. It is based on ample material. Its accepted species have been subject to thorough criticism and in its classification every use has been made of the teachings of morphology and especially of osteology. Its classification is distinctly modern, and with the writings of the contemporary ichthyologists of Europe and America, it is fully representative of the scientific era ushered in by the researches of Darwin. The chief criticism which one may apply to this work concerns most of the publications of the British Museum. It is the frequent assumption that those species not found in the greatest museum of the world do not really exist at all. There are still many forms of life, very many, outside the series gathered in any or all collections.

Albert Günther.

Franz Steindachner.

George A. Boulenger.

Robert Collett.

We may now turn from the universal catalogues to the work on special groups, on local faunas, or on particular branches of the subject of ichthyology. These lines of study were made possible by the work of Cuvier and Valenciennes and especially by that of Dr. Günther.

Before taking up the students of faunal groups, we may, out of chronological order, consider the researches of three great taxonomists, who have greatly contributed to the modern system of the classification of fishes.

Louis Agassiz (born at Motiers in western Switzerland in 1807; died at Cambridge, Mass., in 1873) was a man of wonderful insight in zoological matters and possessed of a varied range of scientific information, scarcely excelled in any age—intellectually a lineal descendant of Aristotle. His first work on fishes was the large folio on the fishes collected by Jean Baptiste Spix (1781-1826) in Brazil, published at Munich in 1827. After his establishment in America in 1846, soon after which date, he became a professor in Harvard University, Agassiz published a number of illuminating papers on the fresh-water fishes of North America. He was the first to recognize the necessity of the modern idea of genera among fishes, and most of the groups designated by him as distinct genera are retained by later writers. He was also the first to investigate the structure of the singular viviparous surf-fishes of California, the names Embiotoca and Holconotus applied to these fishes being chosen by him.

His earlier work, "Recherches sur les Poissons des Eaux Douces," published in Europe, gave a great impetus to our knowledge of the anatomy and especially of the embryology of the fresh-water fishes. Most important of all his zoological publications was the "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles," published at Neufchatel from 1833 to 1843. This work laid the foundation of the systematic study of the extinct groups of fishes. The relations of sharks were first appreciated by Agassiz, and the first segregation of the ganoids was due to him. Although he included in this group many forms not truly related either to anything now called ganoids, nor even to the extinct mailed forms which preceded them, yet the definition of this order marked a distinct step in advance.

The great, genial, hopeful personality of Agassiz and his remarkable skill as a teacher made him the "best friend that ever student had" and gave him a large following as a teacher. Among his pupils in ichthyology were Charles Girard (1822-1895), Frederick Ward Putnam, Alexander Agassiz, Samuel Garman, Samuel H. Scudder, and the present writer.

Johannes Müller (1808-1858), of Berlin, was one of the greatest of comparative anatomists. In his revision of Cuvier's "System of Classification" he corrected many errors in grouping, and laid foundations which later writers have not altered or removed. Especially important is his classical work, "Ueber den Bau and die Grenzen der Ganoiden." In this he showed some of the real fundamental characters of that group of archaic fishes, and took from it the most heterogeneous of the elements left in it by Agassiz. To Müller we also owe the first proper definition of the Leptocardii and the Cyclostomata, and, in association with Dr. J. Henle, Müller has given us one of the best general accounts of the sharks ("Systematische Beschriebungen der Plagiostomen"). To Müller we owe an accession of knowledge in regard to the duct of the air-bladder, and the groups called Physostomi, Physoclysti, Dipneusti (Dipnoi), Pharyngognathi, and Anacanthini were first defined by him.

In his work on Devonian fishes, the great British comparative anatomist, Thomas Henry Huxley, first distinguished the group of Crossopterygians, and separated it from the ganoids and dipnoans.

Theodore Nicholas Gill is the keenest interpreter of taxonomic facts yet known in the history of ichthyology. He is the author of a vast number of papers, the first bearing date of 1858, touching almost every group and almost every phase of relation among fishes. His numerous suggestions as to classification have been usually accepted in time by other authors, and no one has had a clearer perception than he of the necessity of orderly methods in nomenclature. Among the orders first defined by Gill are the Eventognathi, Nematognathi, Pediculati, Iniomi, Heteromi, Haplomi, Xenomi, and the group called Teleocephali, originally framed to include all the bony fishes except those which showed peculiar eccentricities or modifications. Dr. Gill's greatest excellence has been shown as a scientific critic. Incisive, candid, and friendly, there is scarcely an investigator in biology, in America, who is not directly indebted to him for critical aid of the highest importance. The present writer cannot too strongly express his own obligations to this great teacher, his master in fish taxonomy. Dr. Gill's work is not centered in any single great treatise, but is diffused through a very large number of brief papers and catalogues, those from 1861 to 1865 mostly published by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, those of recent date by the United States National Museum. For many years Dr. Gill has been identified with the work of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.

Closely associated with Dr. Gill was Dr. Edward Drinker Cope, of Philadelphia, a tireless worker in almost every field of zoology, and a large contributor to the broader fields of ichthyological taxonomy as well as to various branches of descriptive zoology. Cope was one of the first to insist on the close relation of the true ganoids with the teleost fishes, the nearest related group of which he defined as Isospondyli. At the same time he recognized the wide range of difference even among the forms which Johannes Müller had assembled under that name. In breadth of vision and keenness of insight, Cope ranked with the first of taxonomic writers. Always bold and original, he was not at all times accurate in details, and to the final result in classification his contribution has been less than that of Dr. Gill. Professor Cope also wrote largely on American fresh-water fishes, a large percentage of the Cyprinidæ and Percidæ of the eastern United States having been discovered by him, as well as much of the Rocky Mountain fauna. In later years his attention was absorbed by the fossil forms, and most of the species of Cretaceous rocks and the Eocene shales of Wyoming were made known through his ceaseless activity.

Spencer Fullerton Baird.

Edward Drinker Cope.

Theodore Nicholas Gill.

George Brown Goode.

The enumeration of other workers in the great field of ichthyology must assume something of the form of a catalogue. Part of the impulse received from the great works of Cuvier and Valenciennes and of Günther was spent in connection with voyages of travel. In 1824 Quoy and Gaimard published in Paris the great folio work on the fishes collected by the corvette l'Uranie and la Physicienne in Freycinet's voyages around the world, and in 1834 the same authors published the fishes collected in Duperrey's voyage of the Astrolabe. In 1826 Lesson published the fishes of Dumont D'Urville's voyage of the Coquille. These three great works lie at the foundation of our knowledge of the fishes of Polynesia. In 1839 Eydoux and Gervais published an account of the fishes of the voyage of La Favorite. In 1853, also in Paris, Hombron and Jacquinot gave an account of the fishes taken in Dumont D'Urville's expedition to the South Pole. In England, Sir John Richardson (1787-1865), a wise and careful naturalist, wrote of the fishes collected by the Sulphur (1845), the Erebus and Terror (1846), the Samarang, and the Herald. Lay and Bennett recorded the species taken by Beechey's voyage on the Blossom. A most useful work is the account of the species taken by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle, prepared by the conscientious hand of Rev. Leonard Jenyns. Still more important and far ranging is the voyage of the Challenger, including the first important work in the deep seas, one stately volume and parts of other volumes on fishes being the work of Dr. Günther. Other deep-sea work of equal importance has been accomplished in the Atlantic and the Pacific by the U. S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross. Its results in Central America, Alaska, Japan, Hawaii, as well as off both coasts of the United States, have been made known in different memoirs by Goode and Bean, Gilbert, Garman, Gill, Jordan, Cramer, Ryder, and others. The deep-sea fish collections of the Fish Hawk and the Blake have been studied by Goode and Bean and Garman.

The deep-sea work of other countries may be briefly noticed. The French vessels Travailleur and Talisman have made collections chiefly in the Mediterranean and along the coast of Africa, the results having been made known by Léon Valliant. The Hirondelle about the Azores and elsewhere has furnished material for Professor Robert Collett, of the University of Christiania. Dr. Decio Vinciguerra, of Rome, has reported on the collections of the Violante, a vessel belonging to the Prince of Monaco. Dr. A. Alcock, of Calcutta, has had charge of the most valuable deep-sea work of the Investigator in the Indian Seas. Edgar R. Waite and James Douglas Ogilby, of the Australian Museum at Sydney, have described the collections of the Thetis, on the shores of the New South Wales.

Johann Reinhardt.

Edward Waller Claypole.

Carlos Berg.

Edgar R. Waite.

From Austria the voyage of the frigate Novara has yielded large material which has been described by Dr. Rudolph Kner. The cream of many voyages of many Danish merchant vessels has been gathered in the "Spolia Atlantica" and other truly classical papers of Christian Frederik Lütken, of the University of Copenhagen, one of the most accomplished naturalists of recent times.

F. H. von Kittlitz has written on the fishes seen by him in the northern Pacific, and earlier and more important we may mention the many ichthyological notes found in the records of travel in Mexico and South America by Alexander von Humboldt (1796-1859).

The local faunal work in various nations has been very extensive. In Great Britain we may note Parnell's "Natural History of the Fishes of the Firth of Forth," published in Edinburgh in 1838, William Yarrell's "History of British Fishes" (1859), the earlier histories of British fishes by Edward Donovan and by William Turton, and the works of J. Couch (1862) and Dr. Francis Day (1888), possessing similar titles. The work of Day, with its excellent plates, will long be the standard account of the relatively scant fish fauna of the British islands. H. G. Seeley has prepared (1886) also a useful synopsis of "The Fresh-water Fishes of Europe."

We may here notice without praise the pretentious work of William Swainson (1838-39). W. Thompson has written of the fishes of Ireland, and Rev. Richard T. Lowe and J. Y. Johnson have done most excellent work on the fishes of Madeira. F. McCoy, better known for work on fossil fishes, may be mentioned here.

The fish fauna of Scandinavia has been described more or less fully by S. Kröyer (1840), Robert Nilsson (1855), Fries and Ekström (1836), Robert Collett, Robert Lilljeborg, and F. A. Smitt, besides special papers by other writers, notably Reinhardt, L. Esmarck, Japetus Steenstrup, Lütken, and A. W. Malm. Reinhardt, Kröyer, Lütken, and A. J. Malmgren have written of the Arctic fishes of Greenland and Spitzbergen.

In Russia, Nordmann has described the fishes of the Black Sea ("Ichthyologic Pontique," Paris, 1840) and Eichwald those of the Caspian. More recently, S. Herzenstein, Warpachowsky, K. Kessler, B. N. Dybowsky, and others have written of the rich fauna of Siberia, the Caucasus, and the scarcely known sea of Ochotsk. Stephan Basilevsky has written of the fishes of northern China. A. Kowalevsky has contributed very much to our knowledge of anatomy. Peter Schmidt has studied the fishes of the Japan Sea.

In Germany and Austria the chief local works have been those of Heckel and Kner on the fresh-water fishes of Austria (1858) and C. Th. von Siebold on the fresh-water fishes of Central Europe (1863). German ichthyologists have, however, often extended their view to foreign regions where their characteristic thoroughness and accuracy has made their work illuminating. The two memoirs of Eduard Rüppell on the fishes of the Red Sea and the neighboring parts of Africa, "Atlas zu der Reise im Nördlichen Afrika," 1828, and "Neue Wirbelthiere," 1837, rank with the very best of descriptive literature. Günther's illustrated "Fische der Südsee," published in Hamburg, may be regarded as German work. The excellent colored plates are mostly from the hand of Andrew Garrett. Other papers are those of Dr. Wilhelm Peters on Asiatic fishes, the most important being on the fishes of Mozambique. J. J. Heckel, Rudolph Kner, and Franz Steindachner, successively directors of the Museum at Vienna, have written largely on fishes. The papers of Steindachner cover almost every part of the earth and are absolutely essential to any systematic study of fishes. No naturalist of any land has surpassed Steindachner in industry or accuracy, and his work has the advantage of the best illustrations of fishes made by any artist, the noted Eduard Konopicky. In association with Dr. Döderlein, formerly of Tokyo, Dr. Steindachner has given an excellent account of the fishes of Japan. Other German writers are J. J. Kaup, who has worked in numerous fields, but as a whole with little skill, Dr. S. B. Klunzinger, who has given excellent accounts of the fishes of the Red Sea, and Dr. Franz Hilgendorf, of the University of Berlin, whose papers on the fishes of Japan and other regions have shown a high grade of taxonomic insight. A writer of earlier date is W. L. von Rapp, who wrote on the "Fische den Bodensees." J. F. Brandt has written of the sturgeons of Russia, and Johann Marcusen, to whom we owe much of our knowledge, of the Mormyri of Africa.

In Italy, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, has published an elaborate "Fauna Italica" (1838) and in numerous minor papers has taken a large part in the development of ichthyology. Many of the accepted names of the large groups (as Elasmobranchii, Heterosomata, etc.) were first suggested by Bonaparte. The work of Rafinesque has been already noticed. O. G. Costa published (about 1850) a "Fauna of Naples." In recent times Camillo Ranzani, of Bologna, wrote on the fishes of Brazil and of the Mediterranean. Giovanni Canestrini, Decio Vinciguerra, Enrico Hillyer Giglioli, Luigi Döderlein, and others have contributed largely to our knowledge of Italian fishes, while Carlo F. Emery, F. de Filippi, Luigi Facciolá, and others have studied the larval growth of different species. Camillo Ranzani, G. G. Bianconi, Domenico Nardo, Cristoforo Bellotti, Alberto Perugia, and others have contributed to different fields of ichthyology.

Nicholas Apostolides and, still later, Horace A. Hoffman and the present writer, have written of the fishes of Greece.

In France, the fresh-water fishes are the subject of an important work by Emile Blanchard (1866), and Emile Moreau has given us a convenient account of the fish fauna of France. Léon Vaillant has written on various groups of fishes, his monograph of the American darters (Etheostominæ) being a masterpiece so far as the results of the study of relatively scanty material would permit. The "Mission Scientifique au Mexique," by Valliant and F. Bocourt, is one of the most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the fishes of that region. Dr. H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, has also written largely on the fishes of Asia, Africa, and other regions. Among the most important of these are the "Poissons de Madagascar," and a monograph of the sticklebacks. Alexander Thominot and Jacques Pellegrin have also written, in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, on different groups of fishes. Earlier writers were Constant Duméril, Alphonse Guichenot, L. Brissot de Barneville, H. Hollard, an able anatomist, and Bibron, an associate of Auguste Duméril.

Felipe Poey y Aloy.

Léon Vaillant.

Louis Dollo.

Decio Vinciguerra.

In Spain and Portugal the chief work of local authors is that of J. V. B. Bocage and F. de Brito Capello on the fishes of Portugal. So far as the fishes of Spain are concerned, the most valuable memoir is Steindachner's account of his travels in Spain and Portugal. The principal studies of the Balkan region have also been made by Steindachner. José Gogorza y González, of the Museum of Madrid, has given a list of the fishes of the Philippines. A still more elaborate list, praiseworthy as a beginning, is the work of the Reverend Padre Casto de Elera, professor of Natural History in the Dominican College of Santo Tomas in Manila.

In Holland, the chief great works have been those of Schlegel and Pieter van Bleeker. Professor H. Schlegel, of the University of Leyden, described the fishes collected about Nagasaki by Ph. Fr. de Siebold and Bürger. His work on fishes forms a large folio illustrated by colored plates, a volume of the "Fauna Japonica," published in Leyden from 1843 to 1847. Schlegel's work in every field is characterized by scrupulous care and healthful conservatism, and the "Fauna Japonica" is a most useful monument to his rare powers of discrimination.

Pieter von Bleeker (1819-78), a surgeon in the Dutch East Indies, is the most voluminous writer in ichthyology. He began his work in Java without previous training and in a very rich field where almost everything was new. With many mistakes at first he rose to the front by sheer force of industry and patience, and his later work, while showing much of the "personal equation," is still thoroughly admirable. At his death he was engaged in the publication of a magnificent folio work, "Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Neerlandaises," illustrated by colored plates. This work remains about two-thirds completed. The writings of Dr. Bleeker constitute the chief source of our knowledge of the fauna of the East Indies.

Dr. Van Lidth de Jeude, of the University of Leyden, is the author of a few descriptive papers on fishes.

To Belgium we may assign part at least of the work of the eminent Belgian naturalist, George Albert Boulenger, now long connected with the British Museum. His various valuable papers on the fishes of the Congo are published under the auspices of the "Congo Free State." To Belgium also we may ascribe the work of Louis Dollo on the morphology of fishes and on the deep-sea fishes obtained by the "Expedition Antarctique Belge."

The fish fauna of Cuba has been the lifelong study of Dr. Felipe Poey y Aloy (1799-1891), a pupil of Cuvier, for a half century or more the honored professor of zoology in the University of Havana. Of his many useful papers, the most extensive are his "Memorias sobre la Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba," followed by a "Repertorio" and an "Enumeratio" in which the fishes are elaborately catalogued. Poey devoted himself solely to the rich fish fauna of his native island, in which region he was justly recognized as a ripe scholar and a broad-minded gentleman. A favorite expression of his was "Comme naturaliste, je ne suis pas espagnol: je suis cosmopolite." Before Poey, Guichenot, of Paris, had written on the fishes collected in Cuba by Ramon de la Sagra (1810-60). His account was published in Sagra's "Historia de Cuba," and later Philip H. Gosse (1810-1888) wrote on the fishes of Jamaica. Much earlier, Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1804-65) wrote on the fishes of British Guiana. Other papers on the Caribbean fishes were contributed by Johannes Müller and F. H. Troschel, and by Richard Hill and J. Hancock.

Besides the work in South America of Marcgraf, Agassiz, Reinhardt, Lütken, Steindachner, Jenyns, Boulenger, and others already named, we may note the local studies of Dr. Carlos Berg in Argentina, Dr. R. A. Philippi, and Frederico T. Delfin in Chile, Miranda-Ribeiro in Brazil, with Garman, J. F. Abbott, and others in recent times. Carl H. Eigenmann and earlier Jordan and Eigenmann have studied the great collections made in Brazil by Agassiz. Steindachner has described the collections of Johann Natterer and Gilbert those made by Dr. John Casper Branner. The most recent examinations of the myriads of Brazilian river fishes have been made by Dr. Eigenmann. Earlier than any of these (1855), Francis de Castelnau (1800-65) described many Brazilian fishes and afterwards numerous fishes of Australia and southern Africa, Alphonse Guichenot, of Paris, contributed a chapter on fishes to Claude Gay's (1800-63) "History of Chile," and J. J. von Tschudi, of St. Gallen, published an elaborate but uncritical "Fauna Peruana" with colored plates of Peruvian fishes.

In New Zealand, F. W. Hutton and J. Hector have published a valuable work on the fishes of New Zealand, to which Dr. Gill added useful critical notes in a study of "Antipodal Faunas." Later writers have given us a good knowledge of the fishes of Australia. Notable among them are Charles DeVis, William Macleay, H. de Miklouho-Maclay, James Douglas Ogilby, and Edgar R. Waite. Clarke has also written on "Fishes of New Zealand."

The most valuable work on the fishes of Hindustan is the elaborate treatise on the "Fishes of India" by Surgeon Francis Day. In this all the species are figured, the groups being arranged as in Günther's catalogue, a sequence which few non-British naturalists seem inclined to follow. Cantor's "Malayan Fishes" is a memoir of high merit, as is also McClelland's work on Indian fishes and the still earlier work of Francis Buchanan Hamilton on the fishes of the Ganges. We may here refer to Andrew Smith's papers on the fishes of the Cape of Good Hope and to R. I. Playfair and A. Günther's "Fishes of Zanzibar." T. C. Jerdon, John Edward Gray, E. Tyrwhitt Bennett, and others have also written on the fishes of India; J. C. Bennett has published several excellent papers on the fishes of Polynesia and the East Indies.

In Japan, following the scattering papers of Thunberg, Tilesius, and Houttuyn, and the monumental work of Schlegel, numerous species have been recorded by James Carson Brevoort, Günther, Gill, Eduard Nyström, Hilgendorf, and others. About 1884 Steindachner and Döderlein published the valuable "Fische Japans," based on the collections made about Tokyo by Dr. Döderlein. In 1881, Motokichi Namiye, then assistant curator in the Imperial University, published the first list of Japanese fishes by a native author. In 1900, Dr. Chiyomatsu Ishikawa, on the "Fishes of Lake Biwa," was the first Japanese author to venture to name a new species of fish (Pseudogobio zezera). This reticence was due not wholly to lack of self-confidence, but rather to the scattered condition of the literature of Japanese ichthyology. For this reason no Japanese author has ever felt that any given undetermined species was really new. Other Japanese ichthyologists of promise are Dr. Kamakichi Kishinouye, in charge of the Imperial fisheries Bureau, Dr. Shinnosuke Matsubara, director of the Imperial Fisheries Institute, Keinosuke Otaki, S. Hatta, S. Nozawa, T. Kitahara, and Michitaro Sindo, and we may look for others among the pupils of Dr. Kakichi Mitsukuri, the distinguished professor of zoology in the Imperial University.

Bashford Dean.

Kakichi Mitsukuri.

Carl H. Eigenmann.

Franz Hilgendorf.

The most recent, as well as the most extensive, studies of the fishes of Japan were made in 1999 by the present writer and his associate, John Otterbein Snyder.

The scanty pre-Cuvieran work on the fishes of North America has been already noticed. Contemporary with the early work of Cuvier is the worthy attempt of Professor Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764-1831) to record in systematic fashion the fishes of New York. Soon after followed the admirable work of Charles Alexandre Le Sueur (1789-1840), artist and naturalist, who was the first to study the fishes of the Great Lakes and the basin of the Ohio. Le Sueur's engravings of fishes, in the early publications of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, are still among the most satisfactory representations of the species to which they refer. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), the third of this remarkable but very dissimilar trio, published numerous papers descriptive of the species he had seen or heard of in his various botanical rambles. This culminated in his elaborate but untrustworthy "Ichthyologia Ohiensis." The fishes of Ohio received later a far more conscientious though less brilliant treatment at the hands of Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland (1793-1877), an eminent physician of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1842 the amiable and scholarly James Ellsworth Dekay (1799-1851) published his detailed report on the fishes of the "New York Fauna," and a little earlier (1836) in the "Fauna Boreali-Americana" Sir John Richardson (1787-1865) gave a most valuable and accurate account of the fishes of the Great Lakes and Canada. Almost simultaneously, Rev. Zadock Thompson (1796-1856) gave a catalogue of the fishes of Vermont, and David Humphreys Storer (1804-91) began his work on the fishes of Massachusetts, finally expanded into a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" (1846) and a "History of the Fishes of Massachusetts" (1853-67). Dr. John Edwards Holbrook (1794-1871), of Charleston, published (1855-60) his invaluable record of the fishes of South Carolina, the promise of still more important work, which was prevented by the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States. The monograph on Lake Superior (1850) and other publications of Louis Agassiz (1807-73) have been already noticed. One of the first of Agassiz's students was Charles Girard (1822-95), who came with him from Switzerland, and, in association with Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-87), described the fishes from the United States Pacific Railway Surveys (1858) and the United States and Mexican Boundary Surveys (1859). Professor Baird, primarily an ornithologist, became occupied with executive matters, leaving Girard to finish these studies of the fishes. A large part of the work on fishes published by the United States National Museum and the United States Fish Commission has been made possible through the direct help and inspiration of Professor Baird. Among those engaged in this work, James William Milner (1841-80), Marshall Macdonald (1836-95), and Hugh M. Smith may be noted.

Most eminent, however, among the students and assistants of Professor Baird was his successor, George Brown Goode (1851-96), one of the most accomplished of American naturalists, whose greatest work, "Oceanic Ichthyology," published in collaboration with his long associate, Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean, was barely finished at the time of his death. The work of Theodore Nicholas Gill and Edward Drinker Cope has been already noticed.

Other faunal writers of more or less prominence were William Dandridge Peck (1763-1822) in New Hampshire, George Suckley (1830-69) in Oregon, James William Milner (1841-80) in the Great Lake Region, Samuel Stehman Haldeman (1812-80) in Pennsylvania, William O. Ayres (1817-91) in Connecticut and California; Dr. John G. Cooper (died 1902), Dr. William P. Gibbons and Dr. William N. Lockington (died 1902) in California; Philo Romayne Hoy (1816-93) studied the fishes of Wisconsin, Charles Conrad Abbott those of New Jersey, Silas Stearns (1859-88) those of Florida, Stephen Alfred Forbes and Edward W. Nelson those of Illinois, Oliver Perry Hay, later known for his work on fossil forms, those of Mississippi, Alfredo Dugés, of Guanajuato, those of Central Mexico.

Samuel Garman, at Harvard University, a student of Agassiz, is the author of numerous valuable papers, the most notable being on the sharks and on the deep-sea collections of the Albatross in the Galapagos region, the last illustrated by plates of most notable excellence. Other important monographs of Garman treat of the Cyprinodonts and the Discoboli.

The present writer began a "Systematic Catalogue of the Fishes of North America" in 1875 in association with his gifted friend, Herbert Edson Copeland (1849-76), whose sudden death, after a few promising beginnings, cut short the undertaking. Later, Charles Henry Gilbert (1860-), a student of Professor Copeland, took up the work and in 1883 a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" was completed by Jordan and Gilbert. Later, Dr. Gilbert has been engaged in studies of the fishes of Panama, Alaska, and other regions, and the second and enlarged edition of the "Synopsis" was completed in 1898, as the "Fishes of North and Middle America," in collaboration with another of the writer's students, Dr. Barton Warren Evermann. A monographic review of the Fishes of Puerto Rico was later (1900) completed by Dr. Evermann, together with numerous minor works. Other naturalists whom the writer may be proud to claim as students are Charles Leslie McKay (1854-83), drowned in Bristol Bay, Alaska, while engaged in explorations, and Charles Henry Bollman (1868-89), stricken with fever in the Okefinokee Swamps in Georgia. Still others are Dr. Carl B. Eigenmann, the indefatigable investigator of Brazilian fishes and of the blind fishes of the caves; Dr. Oliver Peebles Jenkins, the first thorough explorer of the fishes of Hawaii; Dr. Alembert Winthrop Brayton, explorer of the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains; Dr. Seth Eugene Meek, explorer of Mexico; John Otterbein Snyder, explorer of Mexico, Japan, and Hawaii; Edwin Chapin Starks, explorer of Puget Sound and Panama and investigator of fish osteology. Still other naturalists of the coming generation, students of the present writer and of his lifelong associate, Professor Gilbert, have contributed in various degrees to the present fabric of American ichthyology. Among them are Mrs. Rosa Smith Eigenmann, Dr. Joseph Swain, Wilbur Wilson Thoburn (1859-99), Frank Cramer, Alvin Seale, Albert Jefferson Woolman, Philip H. Kirsch (1860-1902), Cloudsley Rutter (died 1903), Robert Edward Snodgrass, James Francis Abbott, Arthur White Greeley, Edmund Heller, Henry Weed Fowler, Keinosuke Otaki, Michitaro Sindo, and Richard Crittenden McGregor.

David Starr Jordan.

Herbert Edson Copeland.

Charles Henry Gilbert.

Barton Warren Evermann.

Other facts and conclusions of importance have been contributed by various persons with whom ichthyology has been an incident rather than a matter of central importance.

The Fossil Fishes.[148]—The study of fossil fishes was begun systematically during the first decades of the nineteenth century, for it was then realized that of fossils of back-boned animals, fishes were the only ones which could be determined from early Palæozoic to recent horizons, and that from the diversity of their forms they could serve as reliable indications of the age of rocks. At a later time, when the evolution of vertebrates began to be studied, fishes were examined with especial care with a view of determining the ancestral line of the Amphibians. The earliest work upon fossil fishes is, as one would naturally expect, of a purely systematic value. Anatomical observations were scanty and crude, but as the material for study increased, a more satisfactory knowledge was gained of the structures of the various major groups of fishes; and finally by a comparison of anatomical results important light came to be thrown upon more fundamental problems.

The study of fossil fishes can be divided for convenience into three periods: (I) That which terminated in the magnum opus of Louis Agassiz; (II) that of the systematists whose major works appeared between 1845 and the recent publication of the Catalogue of Fossil Fishes of the British Museum (from this period date many important anatomical observations); and (III) that of morphological work, roughly from 1870 to the present. During this period detailed consideration has been given to the phylogeny of special structures, to the probable lines of descent of the groups of fossil fishes, and to the relationships of terrestrial to aquatic vertebrates.

First Period.—The Work of Louis Agassiz.—The real beginning of our knowledge of fossil fishes dates from the publication of the classic volumes of Agassiz, "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (Neuchâtel, 1833-44)." There had previously existed but a fragmentary and widely scattered literature; the time was ripe for a great work which should bring together a knowledge of this important vertebrate fauna and the museums throughout Europe had been steadily growing in their collections of fossils. Especially ripe, too, since the work of Cuvier (1769-1832) had been completed and the classic anatomical papers of J. Müller (1802-56) were appearing. And Agassiz (1807-73) was eminently the man for this mission. At the age of one and twenty he had already mapped out the work, and from this time he devoted sixteen active years to its accomplishment. One gets but a just idea of the personality of Agassiz when he recalls that the young investigator while in an almost penniless position contrived to travel over a large part of Europe, mingle with the best people of his day, devote almost his entire time to research, employ draughtsmen and lithographers, support his own printing-house, and in the end publish his "Poissons Fossiles" in a fashion which would have done credit to the wealthiest amateur. With tireless energy he collected voluminous notes and drawings numberless; he corresponded with collectors all over Europe and prevailed upon them to loan him tons of specimens; in the meanwhile he collated industriously the early but fragmental literature in such works as those of de Blainville, Münster, Murchison, Buckland, Egerton, Redfield, W. C. Williamson, and others. Hitherto less than 300 species of fossil fishes were known; at the end of Agassiz's work about 900 were described and many of them figured.

It is easy to see that such a work made a ready basis of future studies. Doubtless, too, much is owing to the personal energy of Agassiz that such keen interest was focused in the collection and study of fossil fishes during the middle of the nineteenth century. The actual value of Agassiz's work can hardly be overestimated; his figures and descriptions are usually clear and accurate. And it is remarkable, perhaps, that in view of the very wide field which he covered that his errors are not more glaring and numerous. Upon the purely scientific side, however, one must confess that the "Poissons Fossiles" is of minor importance for the reason that as time has gone by it has been found to yield no generalizations of fundamental value. The classification of fishes advocated by Agassiz, based upon the nature of the scales, has been shown to be convenient rather than morphological. This indeed Agassiz himself appears to realize in a letter written to Humboldt, but on the other hand he regards his creation of the now discarded order of Ganoids, which was based upon integumental characters, as his most important contribution to the general study of ichthyology. And although there passed through his hands a series of forms more complete than has perhaps been seen by any later ichthyologist,[149] a series which demonstrates the steps in the evolution of the various families and even orders of fishes, he is nowhere led to such important philosophical conclusions as was, for example, his contemporary, Johannes Müller. And even to his last day, in spite of the light which palæontology must have given him, he denied strenuously the truth of the doctrine of evolution, a result the more remarkable since he has even given in graphic form the geological occurrence of the various groups of fishes in a way which suggests closely a modern phylogenetic table, and since at various times he has emphasized the dictum that the history of the individual is but the epitomized history of the race. The latter statement, which has been commonly attributed to Agassiz, is clearly of much earlier origin; it was definitely formulated by von Baer and Meckel, the former of whom even as early as 1834 pronounced himself a distinct evolutionist.

Ramsay Heatley Traquair.

Arthur Smith Woodward.

Karl A. Zittel.

Charles R. Eastman.

Second Period.—Systematic Study of Fossil Fishes.—On the ground planted by Agassiz, many important works sprang up within the next decades. In England a vigorous school of palæichthyologists was soon flourishing. Many papers of Egerton date from this time, and the important work of Owen on the structure of fossil teeth and the often-quoted papers of Huxley in the "British Fossil Remains." Among other workers may be mentioned James Powrie, author of a number of papers upon Scottish Devonian fossils; the enthusiastic Hugh Miller, stone-mason and geologist; Montague Brown, Thomas Atthey, J. Young, and W. J. Barkas, students upon Coal Measure fishes; E. Ray Lankester, some of whose early papers deal with pteraspids; E. T. Newton, author of important works on chimæroids. The extensive works of J. W. Davis deal with fishes of many groups and many horizons. Mr. Davis, like Sir Philip Gray Egerton, was an amateur whose devotion did much to advance the study of fossil fishes. The dean of British palæichthyology is at present Dr. R. H. Traquair, of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Arts. During four decades he has devoted himself to his studies with rare energy and success, author of a host of shorter papers and numerous memoirs and reports. Finally, and belonging to a younger generation of palæontologists, is to be named Arthur Smith Woodward, curator of vertebrate palæontology of the British Museum. Dr. Woodward has already contributed many scores of papers to palæichthyology, besides publishing a four-volume Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes of the British Museum, a compendial work whose value can only be appreciated adequately by specialists.

In the United States the study of fossil fishes was taken up by J. H. and W. C. Redfield, father and son, prior to the work of Agassiz, and there has been since that time an active school of American workers. Agassiz himself, however, is not to be included in this list, since his interest in extinct fishes became almost entirely unproductive during his life in America. Foremost among these workers was John Strong Newberry (1822-92), of Columbia College, whose publications deal with fishes of many horizons and whose work upon this continent is not unlike that of Agassiz in Europe. He was the author of many state reports, separate contributions, and two monographs, one upon the palæozoic fishes of North America, the other upon the Triassic fishes. Among the earlier palæontologists were Orestes H. St. John, a pupil of Agassiz at Harvard, and A. H. Worthen (1813-88), director of the Geological Survey of Illinois; also W. Gibbes and Joseph Leidy. The late E. D. Cope (1840-97) devoted a considerable portion of his labors to the study of extinct fishes. E. W. Claypole, of Buchtel College, is next to be mentioned as having produced noteworthy contributions to our knowledge of sharks, palæaspids, and arthrodires, as has also A. A. Wright, of Oberlin College. Among other workers may be mentioned O. P. Hay, of the American Museum; C. R. Eastman, of Harvard, author of important memoirs upon arthrodires and other forms; Alban Stewart, a student of Dr. S. W. Williston at Kansas University, and Bashford Dean. Among Canadian palæontologists G. F. Matthew deserves mention for his work on Cyathaspis, Principal Dawson for interesting references to Mesozoic fishes, and J. F. Whiteaves for his studies upon the Devonian fishes of Scaumenac Bay.

Belgian palæontologists have also been active in their study of fishes. Here we may refer to the work of Louis Dollo, of Brussels, of Max Lohest, of P. J. van Beneden, of L. G. de Koninck, of T. C. Winckler, and of R. Storms, the last of whom has done interesting work on Tertiary fishes.

Foremost among Russian palæichthyologists is to be named C. H. Pander, long-time Academician in St. Petersburg, whose elaborate studies of extinct lung-fishes, ostracophores, and crossopterygians published between 1856 and 1860 will long stand as models of careful work. We should also refer to the work of H. Asmuss and H. Trautschold, E. Eichwald and of Victor Rohon, the last named having published many important papers upon ostracophores during his residence in St. Petersburg.

German palæichthyologists include Otto Jaekel, of Berlin; O. M. Reis of the Oberbergamt, in Munich; A. von Koenen, of Göttingen; A. Wagner, E. Koken, and K. von Zittel. Among Austro-Hungarians are Anton Fritsch, author of the Fauna der Gaskohleformations Boemens; Rudolf Kner, an active student of living fishes as well, as is also Franz Steindachner.

French palæichthyologists are represented by the veteran H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, V. Thollière, M. Brongniart, and F. Priem. In Italy Francesco Bassani, of Naples, is the author of many important works dealing with Mesozoic and Tertiary forms; also was Baron Achille di Zigno. Robert Collett, of Bergen, and G. Lindström are worthy representatives of Scandinavia in kindred work.

Third Period.—Morphological Work on Fossil Fishes.—Among the writers who have dealt with the problems of the relationships of the Ostracophores as well as Palæospondylus and the Arthrodires may be named Traquair, Huxley, Newberry, Smith Woodward, Rohon, Eastman, and Dean; most recently William Patten. Upon the phylogeny of the sharks Traquair, A. Fritsch, Hasse, Cope, Brongniart, Jaekel, Reis, Eastman, and Dean. On Chimæroid morphology mention may be made of the papers of A. S. Woodward, Reis, Jaekel, Eastman, C. D. Walcott, and Dean. As to Dipnoan relationships the paper of Louis Dollo is easily of the first value; of especial interest, too, is the work of Eastman as to the early derivation of the Dipnoan dentition. In this regard a paper of Rohon is noteworthy, as is also that of Richard Semon on the development of the dentition of recent Neoceratodus, since it contains a number of references to extinct types. Interest notes on Dipnoan fin characters have been given by Traquair. In the morphology of Ganoids, the work of Traquair and A. S. Woodward takes easily the foremost rank. Other important works are those of Huxley, Cope, A. Fritsch, and Oliver P. Hay.

Anatomists.—Still more difficult of enumeration is the long list of those who have studied the anatomy of fishes usually in connection with the comparative anatomy or development of other animals. Pre-eminent among these are Karl Ernst von Baer, Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Louis Agassiz, Johannes Müller, Carl Vogt, Carl Gegenbaur, William Kitchen Parker, Francis M. Balfour, Thomas Henry Huxley, Meckel, H. Rathke, Richard Owen, Kowalevsky, H. Stannius, Joseph Hyrtl, Gill, Boulenger, and Bashford Dean. Other names of high authority are those of Wilhelm His, Kölliker, Bakker, Rosenthal, Gottsche, Miklucho-Macleay, Weber, Hasse, Retzius, Owsjannikow, H. Müller, Stieda, Marcusen, J. A. Ryder, E. A. Andrews, T. H. Morgan, G. B. Grassi, R. Semon, Howard Ayers, R. R. Wright, J. P. McMurrich, C. O. Whitman, A. C. Eyclesheimer, E. Pallis, Jacob Reighard, and J. B. Johnston.

Besides all this, there has risen, especially in the United States, Great Britain, Norway, and Canada and Australia, a vast literature of commercial fisheries, fish culture, and angling, the chief workers in which fields we may not here enumerate even by name.