Much less important are the ichthyological labours of J. T. Klein (1685–1759). They are embodied in five parts (Missus) of a work entitled “Historia naturalis piscium” (Sedæ, 1740–9, 4to.) He regarded a system merely as the means of recognising the various forms of animals, not as the expression of their natural affinities; and that method seemed to him to be the most perfect by which an animal could be most readily determined. He eschewed all reference to minute or anatomical characters. Hence his system is a series of the most unnatural combinations, and we cannot be surprised that Linnæus passed in silence over Klein’s labours.
Pupils and Successors of Linnæus
The works of Artedi and Linnæus excited fresh activity, more especially in Scandinavia, Holland, Germany, and England, such as has not been equalled in the history of biological science either before or after. Whilst some of the pupils and followers of Linnæus devoted themselves to an examination and study of the fauna of their native countries, others proceeded on voyages of discovery to foreign and distant countries. Of these latter the following may be specially mentioned:—O. Fabricius worked out the Fauna of Greenland, Kalm collected in North America, Hasselquist in Egypt and Palestine, Brünnich in the Mediterranean, Osbeck in Java and China, Thurnberg in Japan; Forskål examined and described the fishes of the Red Sea; Steller, Pallas, S. T. Gmelin, and Güldenstedt traversed nearly the whole of the Russian Empire in Europe and Asia. Others attached themselves as naturalists to the celebrated circumnavigators of the last century, like the two Forsters (father and son), and Solander, who accompanied Cook; Commerson, who travelled with Bougainville; and Sonnerat. Numerous new and startling forms were discovered by those men, and the foundation was laid of the knowledge of the geographical distribution of animals.
Of those who studied the fishes of their native country the most celebrated are Pennant (Great Britain), O. F. Müller (Denmark), Duhamel (France), Meidinger (Austria), Cornide (Spain), Parra (Cuba).
The materials brought together by those and other zoologists were so numerous that, not long after the death of Linnæus, the necessity was felt of collecting them in a compendious form. Several compilators undertook this task; they embodied the recent discoveries in new editions of Artedi’s and Linné’s classical works, but not possessing either a knowledge of the subject or any critical discernment, they only succeeded in covering those noble monuments under a mass of confused rubbish. For Ichthyology it was fortunate that two men at least, Bloch and Lacépède, made it a subject of long and original research.
M. E. Bloch.
Mark Eliezer Bloch, born in the year 1723 at Anspach in Germany, practised as a physician in Berlin; he had reached an age of fifty-six years when he commenced to write on ichthyological subjects. To commence at his age a work in which he intended not only to give full descriptions of the species known to him from specimens or drawings, but also to illustrate every species in a style truly magnificent for his time, was an undertaking of the execution of which an ordinary man would have despaired. Yet he accomplished not only this task, but even more, as we shall see hereafter.
His work consists of two divisions:—