Müller proposed several other modifications of the Cuvierian system; and, although all cannot be maintained as the most natural arrangements, yet his researches have given us a much more complete knowledge of the organization of the Teleostean fishes, and later inquiries have shown that, on the whole, the combinations proposed by him require only some further modification and another definition to render them perfectly natural.
The discovery (in the year 1871) of a living representative of a genus hitherto believed to be long extinct, Ceratodus, threw a new light on the affinities of fishes. The writer of the present article, who had the good fortune to examine this fish, was enabled to show that, on the one hand, it was a form most closely allied to Lepidosiren, and, on the other, that it could not be separated from the Ganoid fishes, and therefore that Lepidosiren also was a Ganoid,—a relation already indicated by Huxley in a previous paper on “Devonian Fishes.”
Having followed the development of the ichthyological system down to this period, we now enumerate the most important contributions to ichthyology which appeared contemporaneously with or subsequently to the publication of the great work of Cuvier and Valenciennes. For the sake of convenience we may arrange these works under two heads.
I. Voyages, containing general accounts of Zoological Collections
A. French.—1. Voyage autour du monde sur les corvettes de S. M. l’Uranie et la Physicienne, sous le commandement de M. Freycinet, “Zoologie—Poissons,” par Quoy et Gaimard (Paris, 1824). 2. Voyage de la Coquille, “Zoologie,” par Lesson (Paris, 1826-1830). 3. Voyage de l’Astrolabe, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d’Urville, “Poissons,” par Quoy et Gaimard (Paris, 1834). 4. Voyage au Pôle Sud par M. J. Dumont d’Urville, “Poissons,” par Hombron et Jacquinot (Paris, 1853-1854).
B. English.—1. Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur, “Fishes,” by J. Richardson (Lond., 1844-1845). 2. Voyage of H.M.SS. Erebus and Terror, “Fishes,” by J. Richardson (Lond., 1846). 3. Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, “Fishes,” by L. Jenyns (Lond., 1842).
C. German.—1. Reise der österreichischen Fregatte Novara, “Fische,” von R. Kner (Vienna, 1865).
II. Faunae
A. Great Britain.—1. R. Parnell, The Natural History of the Fishes of the Firth of Forth (Edin., 1838). 2. W. Yarrell, A History of British Fishes (3rd ed., Lond., 1859). 3. J. Couch, History of the Fishes of the British Islands (Lond., 1862-1865).