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ICHTHYOLOGY 159 sil forms, which supply many links otherwise wanting in the chain of ichthyological charac- ters. Aristotle, in the 4th century B. C., first reduced ichthyology, as he did the other branch- es of zoology, to scientific form ; he was well acquainted with the structure and external char- acters of fishes, which he distinguishes from cetaceans, laying special stress upon the organs of respiration and locomotion and the scaly covering; he gives the names of 117 species, entering into interesting details on their habits. The system of compilation without observa- tion prevailed until the middle of the 16th cen- tury, when Belon, Rondelet, and Snlviani laid the foundations of modern ichthyology. Be- lon gives rude figures of 110 species, Salviani excellent engravings on .copper of 99, and Ron- delet woodcuts of 234 species, in all three mostly fishes of the Mediterranean. Gesner in the same century borrowed the descriptions of the last mentioned authors, and added some of his own,.in his Hwtoria Animalium (1551-'6), all arranged in alphabetical order without any attempt at method, embracing however many foreign fishes. Ray and his pupil Willughby, English naturalists of the 17th century, in their Historia Piscium (1686), gave the first attempt at a natural classification of fishes, founded upon the consistence of the skeleton, the form, the teeth, presence or absence of ventral fins, number of dorsals, and character of the fin rays. They divided fishes into cartilaginous and osseous ; though their genera are not well defined, the species are so well described that it is generally easy to refer them to their prop- er place in subsequent systems; the whole number of species is 420. The second volume consists of well executed, tolerably accurate plates. This work forms an epoch in the his- tory of ichthyology, which from this time be- gan to assume a methodical arrangement. Pass- ing over Plumier, Ruysch, Kampfer, Sloane, Catesby, and many scientific voyagers of this period, we come to Artedi in the first third of the 18th century. This Swedish naturalist completed the scientific classification of fishes commenced by Willughby and Ray, defining genera and giving them appropriate names. In his Philoiophia he divides the class into four orders, founded on the consistence of the skel- eton, the branchial coverings, and the nature of the fin rays, as follows : 1, malacopterygians ; 2, acanthopterygians ; 3, branchiostegous fish- es ; and 4, chondropterygians (sharks, rays, and sturgeons). He made a fifth, including cetaceans, which is inadmissible, and the third is badly characterized ; the three others are to a certain degree natural. In his Genera Piscium he gives names and distinctive characters of 45 genera, founded on the number of branchioste- gous rays (of which he was the first to see the value), on the position and number of the fins, on the parts supplied with teeth, on the form of the scales, and on the shape of the stomach and cascal appendages; most of these genera stand at the present day. In his Synonymia Pit- 424 VOL. ix. 11 eium he gives the synonymy of 274 species; his works were published after his deatji by Lin- nreus, his early friend, at Leyden, in 1738. Lin- nasus, in the first edition of the Systema Natitrce (1735), followed Artedi; but in the next (1740) he began to give the number of the fin rays, a method of distinguishing since found of great value. In his 10th edition (1758) he trusted to his own knowledge, creating a new system, de- fining genera more clearly, and using a scientific nomenclature ; the most important change was in removing cetaceans from the class of fishes, in which since the time of Aristotle they had been placed, and in uniting them with viviparous quadrupeds in the class mammalia. Brisson, in 1756, had already separated them from fishes. Linnasus, however, committed the error of placing the chondropterygians among reptiles, under the title of amphibia nantes, to which in the 12th edition (1766) he added the Iran- chiostegi of Artedi (ostracion, lophius, tetro- dom, &c.). He also suppressed the division of fishes according to the nature of the fin rays, and substituted one founded on the pres- ence or absence of the ventral fins and their position in reference to the pectorals, a method which violates many of the true relations of these animals. Though Linnrous neglected some of the genera of his contemporaries, and distributed his orders in an unnatural manner, describing only 480 species, his precision of definition and the excellence of his binary no- menclature were of great advantage to the progress of ichthyology, and his division into apode, jvgulares, thoracici, and aldominales for a long time held its place in the science. Linnreus gave an impetus to the study of natu- ral history, which resulted in making it in- teresting to all classes, and in inspiring princes with a desire to extend its domain ; national expeditions were fitted out by England, France, Denmark, and Russia, which came back laden with treasures of the deep for naturalists; among the workers in this great field we can only mention the names of Commerson, Son- nerat, Pennant, Banks, Solander, the Forsters, Forskal, Steller, Otho Fabricius, O. F. Miiller, and Thunberg; the scientific journals teemed with descriptions of new species of fishes from all parts of the globe. The next great con- tributor to ichthyology was the German natu- ralist Bloch, whose celebrated work on the "Natural History of Fishes " consists of two parts essentially distinct ; the first, the " Eco- nomic History of the Fishes of Germany," ap- peared at Berlin in 1782-'4, in 3 vols. 4to, with 108 folio plates; the second, the "History of Foreign Fishes," in 1785-'95, in 9 vols. 4to, with 324 folio plates; both were translated into French in a few years after each volume appeared. Of German fishes he describes 115 species, mostly observed by himself. As he was little conversant with the anatomy of fishes, some of his genera are based on purely artificial characters, while others are remark- ably correct. He follows the method of Lin-