1 The first expeditions mounted in this spirit were those of [John] Byron [1723-1786], [Samuel] Wallis [1728-1795], and [Philip] Carteret [1733-1796], described by [John] Hawkesworth [1715?-1773], along with that of the first voyage of [James] Cook [see note 9 below], London, 1773, three volumes in quarto.

2 Philibert Commerson, born at Châtillon-les-Dombes, Ain, in 1727 was passionately devoted to natural history as early as his medical studies at Montpellier. The claim has been made that, at the invitation of Linnaeus, he collected Mediterranean fishes for the queen of Sweden, which surprises us because Linnaeus never mentioned it. Sailing with Bougainville in 1766, he visited the coast of Brazil, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, the Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, some islands near New Guinea, and Java, stayed on at Mauritius, and died there [of pleurisy] in 1773. [For more on Commerson’s life and work, see Oliver (Samuel Pasfield), The life of Philibert Commerson, DM., naturaliste du roi: An old-world story of French travel and science in the days of Linnaeus [ed. by Scott Elliot G. F.], London: Murray, 1909, xvii + 242 p.]

3 Louis Antoine, comte de Bougainville, famous for his bravery on land and sea, was born in Paris in 1729 and died there in 1811. [Son of a notary, he was called to the bar in Paris. While aide-major in the Picardie regiment (1753), then secretary at the London embassy (1754), he pursued his interest in mathematics and by 1754 had published a treatise on integral calculus.] In 1763 he [joined the navy, with the rank of captain, and] supervised the establishment of a trading post in the Falkland Islands that was later described by Father [Antoine-Joseph] Pernety [1716-1769]. From 1766 to 1769 [in command of the Boudeuse and Étoile] he circumnavigated the globe [becoming the first French commander to do so] and published an account of his voyage, Paris, 1771, in quarto; another edition appeared in 1772, two volumes in octavo. [For more on Bougainville, see Hammond (Lincoln Davis), News from New Cythera: A report of Bougainville’s voyage, 1766-1769, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970, 66 p., in-8°.]

4 It very often happened that Lacepède [in his Histoire naturelle des poissons (1798-1803)] created three or four different species from the description, the drawings, and the notes written on the back of the drawings, and he even placed these imaginary fishes in different genera. We shall see many examples of this.

5 [The manuscripts of Commerson are at present housed in the Bibliothèque Centrale du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris (see Laissus (Yves), “Catalogue des manuscrits de Philibert Commerson (1727-1773) conservés à la Bibliothèque Centrale du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle,” Revue d’histoire des sciences, vol. 31, no. 2, 1978, pp. 131-162.).]

6 Pierre Sonnerat, born at Lyons [in 1748], was the nephew of the famous [Pierre] Poivre [born at Lyons in 1719, died there in 1786] who was [general commissioner and later] intendant of Mauritius. He died in Paris in 1814, the day the city was taken by the Allies [the allied nations of Europe that forced the abdication of Bonaparte on 11 April], [Traveling to Mauritius in 1767 he explored Réunion and Madagascar with Philibert Commerson from 1768 to 1771. In 1771 he sailed on the naval transport vessel Isle de France as clerk and naturalist, participating in the last expedition to New Guinea and returning with a large collection of plants and animals for the king’s cabinet.] He is well known to the public for his two voyages: the first to New Guinea in 1769 [a description of which was] published in 1776 in quarto; the second to India and China, 1774-1781, printed in 1782, two volumes in quarto. He provides many illustrations of quadrupeds and birds but does not discuss fishes, which he reserved for another work. [For more on Sonnerat, see Rookmaaker (Leendert Cornelis), The zoological exploration of southern Africa, 1650-1790, Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1989, pp. 37-38.]

7 Joseph Banks, privy councillor, knight of the bath, and president of the Royal Society of London, was a man to be commended for having used his fortune to further the cause of science and his credit to protect scientists. Born in London in 1743, [he studied at Eton, Harrow, and Oxford]. [Upon the death in 1761 of his father, a rich landowner in Lincolnshire, he inherited a fortune that permitted him to devote himself to natural history. He studied the works of Linnaeus and Buffon, set up an exhaustive herbarium of the flora of Great Britain, and assembled one of the largest and most famous libraries of natural history in Europe. In 1766 he traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador, and from 1768 to 1771 he participated in the first voyage of Captain Cook, contributing money to it and bringing with him three artists, Sidney Parkinson (1745-1771), Alexander Buchan (died 1769), and Herman Diedrich Spöring (1733-1771) (on the artists of the Endeavour voyage, see Wheeler (Alwyne C.), “Catalogue of the natural history drawings commissioned by Joseph Banks on the Endeavour voyage 1768-1771 held in the British Museum (Natural History). Part 3: Zoology,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), vol. 13, 1986, pp. 1-171). In 1772 he organized at his own expense a scientific expedition to the Hebrides and to Iceland. He was elected president of the Royal Society of London in 1778, was knighted in 1781, and was elected commander of the Order of the Bath and member of the Privy Council in 1797. Originator of numerous British exploratory missions, he extended his patronage to naturalists of all countries, even those at war with Great Britain. His botanical collections formed the original basis of the Botanical Department of the British Museum.] He died [at Spring Cove, Isleworth, Middlesex] in 1820. [For book-length biographies of Banks, see Carter (Harold B.), Sir Joseph Banks, 1743-1820, London: British Museum (Natural History), 1988, xl + 671 p., ills, and O’Brian (Patrick), Joseph Banks: A life, Boston (Mass.): David R. Godine, 1993, 328 p.; for biographic and bibliographic sources relative to Banks, see Carter (Harold B.), Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820): A guide to biographical and bibliographical sources, Winchester: St. Paul’s Bibliographies, in association with the British Museum, 1987, 328 p., ills.]

8 Daniel Solander, student of Linnaeus, born at Pitea, Sweden, in 1733. [From 1753 to 1756 he traveled to Russia, Lapland, and the Canary Islands. Sent by Linnaeus to London in 1760 to expound the Linnaean system, he took up residence there. By 1763 he was employed in classifying and cataloging natural history collections at the British Museum, where he became assistant librarian in 1765 and chief curator in 1773. In 1764 he was elected to the Royal Society of London, and] from 1768 to 1771 he was Joseph Banks’s companion on Cook’s first voyage. He died [in London] in 1782. [For more on Solander, see Diment (Judith A.) & Wheeler (Alwyne C.), “Catalogue of the natural history manuscripts and letters by Daniel Solander (1733-1782), or attributed to him, in British collections,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, no. 3, 1984, pp. 457-488; Jonsell (Bengt), “Daniel Solander —the perfect Linnaean; his years in Sweden and relations with Linnaeus,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, no. 3, 1984, pp. 443-450; Marshall (John Braybrooke), “Daniel Carl Solander, friend, librarian and assistant to Sir Joseph Banks,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, no. 3, 1984, pp. 451-456; Stearn (William T.), “Daniel Carlsson Solander (1733-1782), pioneer Swedish investigator of Pacific natural history,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, no. 3, 1984, pp. 499-503; Tingbrand (Per), “Daniel Solander, Piteå’s around-the-world pioneer,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, no. 3, 1984, pp. 489-498; Wheeler (Alwyne C.), “Daniel Solander—zoologist,” Svenska Linnésällskapets årsskrift (Uppsala), vol. 1982-1983, 1984, pp. 7-30; “Daniel Solander and the zoology of Cook’s voyage,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 11, 1984, pp. 505-515; “Catalogue of the natural history drawings commissioned by Joseph Banks on the Endeavour voyage 1768-1771 held in the British Museum (Natural History). Part 3: Zoology,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), vol. 13, 1986, pp. 1-171.]

9 James Cook [1728-1779] is another of those men whose biography we need not rehearse. We shall confine ourselves to mentioning only the dates of his three great voyages, which were so rich in discoveries and which added so much to our knowledge of natural history [see Whitehead (Peter James Palmer), Forty drawings of fishes made by artists who accompanied Captain James Cook on his three voyages to the Pacific, 1768-71, 1772-75, 1776-78 some being used by authors in the description of new species, London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1968, xxxi + 204 p., ills; “Zoological specimens from Captain Cook’s voyages,” Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, vol. 5, no. 3, 1969, pp. 161-201; “A guide to the dispersal of zoological materials from Captain Cook’s voyages,” Pacific Studies (Laie, Hawaii), 1978, pp. 52-93]. The first voyage, accompanied by Banks and Solander, lasted from 1768 to 1771; it was described by Hawkesworth in 1773. The second voyage, on which he took with him the two Forsters, from 1772 to 1775, was described by himself, London, 1777, two volumes in quarto, and by the younger Forster in 1778, two volumes, translated into German and printed in Berlin. In the same year, the elder Forster published his observations separately in one volume in quarto, London, 1778. On the third voyage, begun in 1776, during which Cook lost his life [1779], he did not wish to take any naturalists; it was completed in 1780, under the leadership of [Charles] Clerke [1741-1779] and [John] Gore [died 1790] and described by [Captain James] King, London, 1784, three volumes in quarto. All three voyages have been translated into French: the first in 1774; the second in 1778, with observations by the two Forsters, five volumes in octavo; the third in 1785, four volumes in octavo.

10 Sidney Parkinson [born at Edinburgh in 1745 and died at sea in 1771], was an English painter employed on Cook’s first voyage [1768-1771], about which he wrote an account published at London, 1773, in quarto. [For more on Parkinson, see Carr (Denis John), Sydney Parkinson, artist of Cook’s “Endeavour” voyage, Canberra: Nova Pacifica in association with the British Museum (Natural History) and the Australian National University Press, 1983, XV + 300 p., ills.]

11 Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet, born at Montpellier in 1761, secretary of the Agricultural Society of Paris, then consul to Morocco, and professor at Montpellier at his death in 1807 was very interested in fishes. It is even said that he prepared a general natural history of fishes in which he described twelve hundred species; but he published only a fragment containing ten species, printed in London in 1782. [In addition, he published a number of smaller papers]: articles on sharks [1784, 1785] in which he described twenty-seven species, nine of which were new to science; memoirs on the electric catfish (silure électrique) [1785]; the wolffish (anarrhique) [1788]; the sailfish (voilier) [1788]; and research on the scales of fishes [1787], the spermatic vessels [1788], and the regeneration of fins [1788]. [For more on Broussonet, see Bauchot (Marie-Louise), “Les Poissons de la collection de Broussonet au Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle de Paris,” Bulletin du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2^e série, vol. 41, no. 1, 1969, pp. 125-143.]

12 [Robert Brown, botanist, born at Montrose, Scotland, 1773, and died in London in 1858, was curator-librarian for Joseph Banks and later under-librarian for the custody of the Banksian Collection at the British Museum (see Edwards (Phyllis I.), “Robert Brown (1773-1858) and the natural history of Matthew Flinders’ voyage in H.M.S. Investigator, 1801-1805,” Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, vol. 7, 1976, pp. 385-407; Mabberley (David J.), Jupiter Botanicus: Robert Brown of the British Museum, London: British Museum (Natural History), 1985, 500 p., ills, in-8°.; Wheeler (Alwyne C.), “The zoological manuscripts of Robert Brown,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 20, no. 3, 1993, pp. 417-424).]

13 Johann Reinhold Forster, born at Dirschau [Tczew] in Polish Prussia in 1729, Protestant minister near Danzig, emigrated to Russia, then to England, seems not to have had a very conciliatory disposition; he quarreled with Cook and was harshly treated by the Admiralty on his return. He decided then to enter the service of Prussia and was professor at Halle from 1780 to 1798, when he died there. We cite among his numerous works his Indische Zoologie, Halle, 1781, reprinted at London, 1790, and at Halle, 1795. Johann George Adam Forster, son of Johann Reinhold, born in 1754, companion and aide to his father during the voyage round the world, professor at Kassel in 1778, at Vilna in 1784, then at Mayence, died on the revolutionary scaffold in Paris in 1794. He concurred in the statements on physical science and natural history made by his father and found in the French edition of the Voyage [1778]. [On the two Forsters, see Allen (Elsa Guerdrum), “The history of American ornithology before Audubon,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series, vol. 41, no. 3, 1951, pp. 501-503; Whitehead (Peter James Palmer), “The Forster collection of zoological drawings in the British Museum (Natural History),” Bulletin British Museum (Natural History), vol. 6, no. 2, 1978, pp. 25-47; Mearns (Barbara) & Mearns (Richard), Biographies for birdwatchers, the lives of those commemorated in western Palearctic bird names, London: Academic Press, 1988, pp. 154-159; Rookmaaker (Leendert Cornelis), The zoological exploration of southern Africa, 1650-1790, Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema, 1989, pp. 43-59.]

14 See the preface of Systema ichthyologiae [Bloch (Marcus Elieser) & Schneider (Johann Gottlob), M. E. Blochii… Systema ichthyologiae iconibus CX illustratum. Post obitum auctoris opus inchoatum absolvit, correxit, interpolavit Jo. Gottlob Schneider Saxo, Berlin: Sumptibus auctoris impressum et bibliopolio Sanderiano commissum, 1801, 2 vol. (lx + 584 p.; 110 pls), ills, in-8°], p. xiv.

15 Mrs. Bowdich, well known for her courage in accompanying her husband on perilous expeditions and for the distinguished talents she has devoted to an amiable science, has been willing —with the concurrence of the present depository, the great botanist Mr. Robert Brown [see note 12 above]— to make us copies of all these drawings. We consider it one of our primary duties to express here our gratitude to her. [Sarah Bowdich (née Wallis), born at Bristol in 1791, married the traveler and writer Thomas Edward Bowdich and accompanied him to the coast of Africa, first in 1814-1818 and again in 1822-1824. Her husband born in 1791, became associated with Cuvier during the two years he spent at Paris studying mathematics and the natural sciences; he died at Bathurst in Gambia in 1824. She edited and illustrated her husband’s work as well as making copies for Cuvier of numerous drawings by her husband and those by Forster and Parkinson. She also sent Cuvier fishes from England and Scotland.]

16 Peter Forsskål, born in Finland in 1732, was chosen by the king of Denmark on the recommendation of Linnaeus to participate as naturalist on a scientific expedition to Arabia in 1761; he died in that country in 1763. Niebuhr [see note 17 below] collected his papers and drew from them the Descriptiones animalium, Copenhagen, 1775, in quarto; Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, Copenhagen, 1775; and Icones rerum naturalium, Copenhagen, 1776. [For more on Forsskål and his collection of fishes, see Klausewitz (Wolfgang) & Nielsen (Jørgen G.), “On Forsskål’s collection of fishes in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen,” Spolia Zoologica Musei Hauniensis, vol. 22, 1965, pp. 1-29, pls 1-38; Wolff (Torben), Danske ekspeditioner på verdenshavene: Danish Expeditions on the seven seas, Copenhagen: Rhodos International Science and Art, 1967, pp. 15-47.]

17 Karsten Niebuhr, astronomer and cartographer, was born at Ludingsworth in Lauenburg in 1733 and died in 1815. A simple peasant who became an engineer, he was employed as such on the expedition to Arabia [with Peter Forsskål; see Wolff (Torben), Danske ekspeditioner på verdenshavene: Danish Expeditions on the seven seas, Copenhagen: Rhodos International Science and Art, 1967, pp. 16-47], from which he alone returned in 1767. In 1772 he published a description of Arabia, and in 1774-1778, in two volumes in quarto, an account of his journey [a third volume was published in 1837].

18 Daniel Theophile Messerschmidt, from Danzig, was born in 1685 and died in 1735. His researches seem to have been immense. To him we are obliged for the first [description of a] fossil elephant cranium.

19 [Joseph Nicolas] Delisle de la Croyère [1688-1768], astronomer; [Gerhard Friedrich] Müller [1705-1783] and [Johann Eberhardt] Fischer [died 1771], historians; [Aleksei] Chirikof [1703-1748] and [Vitus Jonassen] Bering [1681- 1741], mariners; [Johann Georg] Gmelin [1709-1755], botanist; [Georg Wilhelm] Steller [1709-1746], zoologist, and others.

20 Johann Georg Gmelin, born at Tübingen in 1709, followed his compatriots [George Bernard] Bülfinger [professor of theology at Tübingen, 1693-1750] and [Johann Georg] Duvernoy [physician and botanist, native of Tübingen; 1691- 1759] to St. Petersburg, and there he occupied the chairs of botany and chemistry. After his return from [the expedition to] Siberia [1733-1743], he published the first two volumes of the flora of that country, St. Petersburg, 1747-1749; his nephew [Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (see note 24 below)] published the remaining two volumes in 1768-1769. He returned to Tübingen in 1749 and died there in 1755. He published an account of his journey at Göttingen, 1751- 1752, in German, four volumes in octavo. An abridgment in French in two volumes in duodecimo was produced by [Louis Félix Guinement de] Keralio, and another is in the eighteenth volume in quarto of the Histoire générale des voyages [see Prévost (Antoine François), Histoire générale des voyages, ou Collection nouvelle de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre qui ont été publiées jusqu’à présent dans les différentes langues de toutes les nations connues, Paris: Panckoucke, 1768, vol. 18, pp. 71- 483: “Voyage au Kamtschatka par la Sibérie. Journal de M. Gmelin, tr. de 1’Allemand”]. It contains little on fishes.

21 Georg Wilhelm Steller, one of the most courageous and ablest naturalists Russia has had in its service, and whom it has treated with the greatest ingratitude, was born in 1709 at Winsheim in Franconia. At several German universities he studied theology, medicine, and natural history, and he was made physician in the Russian army that besieged Danzig in 1734. The baron of Korff, president of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, sent him in 1738 to join the expedition that had departed in 1734. [Vitus Jonassen] Bering, who was to explore the islands between Siberia and America, invited him in 1741 to accompany him. Steller suffered horribly on this journey and in the end found himself misled by all the promises of that captain. He went to St Petersburg to seek justice, but orders were forwarded to him to return to Irkutsk to defend himself against who knows what imputation. He was about to return when he received a second order of the same nature, in 1746, and this time the guard sent to escort him left him to freeze on the high road. His description of Kamchatka was published in German in 1774, under the supervision of [Jean-Benoît] Scherer [1741-1824], an employee of the French foreign affairs office. There is an excellent memoir by Steller on seals and manatees in Novi commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae (St Petersburg), vol. 2 [1751], and in the third volume of the same periodical some general observations on fishes [1752], from which it is obvious that he had studied them with care. He composed [but left unpublished] an “Ichthyology of Siberia” from which Pallas and Tilesius have provided interesting excerpts in their own works. [For an English translation of Steller’s 1741-1742 voyage with Bering, see Steller (Georg Wilhelm), Journal of a voyage with Bering, 1741-1742 [tr. by Engel Margritt A. & Frost Orcutt W.; ed. with intro. by Frost Orcutt W.], Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988, vi + 252 p., ills; for a full biographical treatment, see Stejneger (Leonhart), Georg Wilhelm Steller the pioneer of Alaskan natural history, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936, xxiv + 623 p., XXIX pls, in-8°; see Mearns (Barbara) & Mearns (Richard), Biographies for birdwatchers, the lives of those commemorated in western Palearctic bird names, London: Academic Press, 1988, pp. 347-355.]

22 In addition to astronomers and surveyors, there were five naturalists and some students on the expedition of 1768: Pallas turned toward the Jaïk and the Caspian Sea, examined mines in the Urals and the Altais in the district of Kolywan, crossed Lake Baikal, and approached the frontier of Chinese Tartary; he returned by way of the Caucasus. Gmelin went to the south, saw the settlements of the Cossacks on the Don and Astrakhan, and made two excursions into Persia. Falck explored the province of Orenburg and adjacent lands up to the Ob. Georgi was assistant first to Falck and then to Pallas. Güldenstädt concentrated on the Caucasus. Lepechin visited the Urals, Astrakhan, and the shores of the White Sea.

23 Johan Peter Falck, born in Sweden in 1732, was a student of Linnaeus and then professor of botany at the Apothecaries’ Garden in St. Petersburg. Afflicted with hypochondria and sufferings of every sort, he killed himself at Kazan in March 1774. A description of his voyage was published, under the supervision of Georgi, in three volumes in quarto, 1785- 1786.

24 Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin, born at Tübingen in 1744, was the nephew of Johann Georg Gmelin, a member of the Siberian expedition of 1733-1743 [see note 20 above]. The first three volumes of his travels appeared from 1770 to 1774. But he (the nephew) died in 1774, a prisoner of the khan of Khaïtakes, and the editing of the fourth volume was entrusted to Güldenstädt and, after his death, to Pallas, who issued it in 1784. There are some descriptions and three drawings of fishes, and many details on the fisheries.

25 Johann Anton von Güldenstädt, born at Riga in 1745, studied at Berlin. The favor of the czar of Georgia procured him much assistance in his exploration of the Caucasus, but he contracted diseases in that country that enfeebled him. Nevertheless, he returned to St Petersburg, where he died at age thirty-six of a wasting fever rampant in that city. A description of his voyage, printed under the direction of Pallas, in two volumes in quarto, 1787-1791, includes accounts of some fishes. He also described and illustrated several fishes in Novi commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae (St Petersburg), vols 16 [1772], 17 [1773], and 19 [1775]. [For more on Güldenstädt, see Mearns (Barbara) & Mearns (Richard), Biographies for birdwatchers, the lives of those commemorated in western Palearctic bird names, London: Academic Press, 1988, pp. 179-181]. Johann Gottlieb Georgi, born in Pomerania in 1729 [died 1802], sent to join Falck in 1770, published a description of his voyage, two volumes in quarto, 1775, in which he describes a few fishes. The seventh part of his description of Russia, in eight parts in octavo, 1797-1802, contains a natural history of fishes of that empire, although incomplete. Ivan [Ivanovich] Lepechin (1740-1802) studied at St Petersburg and Strasbourg and in 1783 was secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He published [the description of] his voyage in Russian, three volumes in quarto, 1771- 1780 [a fourth volume was published in 1805], in which he describes several species of fishes. There is a German translation by [Christian Heinrich] Hase, Altenburg, 1774- 1783. Nikolai [Petrovich] Rychkov [1746-1784], one of the students attached to this expedition, published [a description of] his voyage in Russian [1770-1772], and Hase translated it into German, Riga, 1774, in octavo.

26 In addition to the numerous memoirs of Koelreuter mentioned above [see chapter 8, note 21], which appear in various volumes of the Nova Acta of the Impérial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, this periodical contains a number of additional articles on fishes: a knifefish (carape) described by Basil Zuiew, vol. 5, 1789; a sturgeon (esturgeon) by Lepechin, vol. 9, 1795; and the natural history of the salmon in the Frozen Sea by [Nikolai Yakovlevich] Ozeretskovsky, vol. 12, 1801.

27 Johann Christian Fabricius, Danish entomologist, born at Tondern in the duchy of Schleswig in 1745, professor [of natural history] at Kiel, died in 1808. His immense work on insects does not pertain to our subject; we shall cite only his travels in Norway, published in German, Hamburg, 1779, in octavo, in which he discusses fourteen species of fishes. This work has been translated into French by Millin [and published in 1802 in octavo].

28 Otto Fabricius [1744-1822], clergyman, was employed in the Danish colony of Greenland, and then in Norway and in Denmark. He published a description of the fauna of Greenland, Copenhagen, and Leipzig, 1780, in octavo, one of the best works of this sort, in which he gives precise descriptions of forty-four species of fishes, and for several of them gives very interesting details on their natural history. However, one must occasionally be cautious with his nomenclature [see Wolff (Torben), Danske ekspeditioner på verdenshavene: Danish Expeditions on the seven seas, Copenhagen: Rhodos International Science and Art, 1967, pp. 48-50].

29 The voyage to Iceland written by Eggert Olafsen, Icelandic naturalist (1726-1768) and by Bjorne Povelsen, chief physician on that island (died 1778), was published in Danish at Sorøe in 1772, and in German at Copenhagen in 1774-1775, two volumes in quarto. It contains descriptions and drawings of fishes, although they are somewhat crudely done. There is a French translation by Gauthier de la Peyronie, Paris, 1802, five volumes in octavo, with an atlas in which the nomenclature of natural history is often mutilated.

30 Peder Ascanius [1723-1803], inspector of mines in the north of Norway, published several colored drawings of fishes, some of which represent new species, in his Icones rerum naturalium, or drawings in color of the natural history of the North [a work initiated in oblong folio in 1767], Copenhagen and Geneva [and continued in folio, 1772-1806, Copenhagen].

31 Otto Fredrik Müller, naturalist, born in Copenhagen in 1730, died in 1784; one of the most careful and diligent observers of the eighteenth century, who was made famous by his discoveries with the microscope, illustrated some fishes in Zoologiae Danicae, 1777-1789, in folio, and his example was followed by his successors, [Peder Christian] Abildgaard [1740-1801], Viborg [probably Eric Nissen Viborg, 1759-1822], and [Martin Heinrich] Rathke [1793-1860]. He included a general catalog of Danish fishes in his Zoologiae Danicae prodromus, Copenhagen, 1776, in octavo [see Wolff (Torben), Danske ekspeditioner på verdenshavene: Danish Expeditions on the seven seas, Copenhagen: Rhodos International Science and Art, 1967, pp. 48-50].

32 A large number of memoirs are to be found in the collections of the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, the Royal Society of Copenhagen, and the Society of Sciences of Norway. The most notable authors are [Hans] Strøm [1726-1797], [Bengt Anders] Euphrasén [1756-1796], [Morten Thrane] Brünnich [1737-1827; see note 38 below], Strupenfeld, [Nils] Gissler [1715-1771], [Théodore] Ankarcrona [1687-1750], [Henrik] Tonning [1732-1796], [Martin Hendriksen] Vahl [1749-1804], [Clas Fredrik] Hornstedt [1758-1809], [Theodore] Holm, [Anders Jahan] Retzius [1742-1821], [Lars] Montin [1722-1785], and others.

33 Carl Peter Thunberg [a Swedish doctor, botanist, and traveler], born in 1743 [died 1828], was a student of Linnaeus and professor at Uppsala. [In the 1770s, on his way to Japan under the employ of the Dutch East India Company, he stopped off at the Cape of Good Hope, where from 1772 to 1775 he made large collections of plants and animals. He then continued on to Japan, Java, and Ceylon before returning to the Cape in 1778 and finally Sweden in 1779. All of his specimens were presented to the University of Uppsala, where he was appointed director of the museum and professor of natural history. For more on Thunberg, see Rookmaaker (Leendert Cornelis), The zoological exploration of southern Africa, 1650-1790, Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1989, pp. 148-162.]

34 [Thunberg in] Kongliga Svenska Wetenskaps Akademiens Nya Handlingar (Stockholm), 1790, 1792, and 1793. There is also a dissertation by him [see Thunberg (Carl Peter), Specimen ichthyologicum de muraena et ophichtho, quod venia exp. Fac. Med. Ups. praeside Carol. Pet. Thunberg… modeste offert Jonas Nicol Ahl, Uppsala: Johan. Edman, 1789. ] on the moray eel (murène) and the snake eel (ophichte).

35 Martinus Houttuyn [1720-1798] was a diligent but poorly educated naturalist who translated and paraphrased in Dutch the Systema naturae [of Linnaeus], Amsterdam, 1761-1785 [see Houttuyn (Martinus), Natuurlyke historie, of uitvoerige beschryving der dieren, planten en mineraalen, volgens het samenstel van den Heer Linnaeus, Amsterdam: F. Houttuyn, 1761-1785, 3 pts in 37 vols].

36 [Memoirs on fishes published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London]: Johann Friedrich Gronovius, on the loach (misgurn), vol. 44 [1747]; [James] Parsons, on the anglerfish (baudroie), vol. 46 [1752]; Cromwell Mortimer, on the opah (zeus luna), vol. 46 [1752]; Farrington, on the char (truite des Alpes), vol. 49 [1756]; [James] Ferguson, on the anglerfish (baudroie), vol. 53 [1764]; [John Albert] Schlosser, on Chaetodon rostratus, vol. 54 [1765, 1767]; [Pieter Simon] Pallas, on the archerfish (toxotes), vol. 56 [1767]; [Michael] Tyson, on a perch (perche) of the South Pacific, vol. 61 [1772]; Daines Barrington, on the trout (truite), vol. 64 [1774]; [Thomas] Brown, on the flyingfish (exocet), vol. 68 [1779]; [William] Watson, on the blue shark (squale glauque), vol. 68 [1779]; [William] Bell, on Chaetodon nodosus, vol. 83 [1793].

37 Broussonet [see note 11 above], a memoir on the sailfish (voilier), I788, and another on the different species of dogfish sharks (chien de mer), 1784, both published in the Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris); the latter article was reprinted in the Journal de Physique, vol. 26 [Paris, 1785].

38 Morten Thrane Brünnich [1737-1827], professor at Copenhagen, author of the Ichthyologia Massiliensis, Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1768, in octavo, in which he describes fairly accurately 101 species, some of which were new. His nomenclature cannot always be trusted; his Perca pusilla, for example, is but Zeus [Capros] aper. This work contains an appendix titled “Spolia Maris Adriatici,” in which he indicates another 13 species, but some of these are the same as those included in the main body of the work. [For more on Brünnich, see Mearns (Barbara) & Mearns (Richard), Biographies for birdwatchers, the lives of those commemorated in western Palearctic bird names, London: Academic Press, 1988, pp. 93-95.]

39 Francesco Cetti [1726-1778], ex-Jesuit, author of Storia naturale di Sardegna, four volumes in octavo, Sassari, 1774- 1778. He discusses fishes in the third volume, but all except the tuna (thon) are mentioned only briefly. [For more on Cetti, see Mearns (Barbara) & Mearns (Richard), Biographies for birdwatchers, the lives of those commemorated in western Palearctic bird names, London: Academic Press, 1988, pp. 113-115.]

40 Don José Andrés Cornide de Saavedra [1734-1803], governor of Santiago, author of an essay on the natural history of fishes and other marine organisms of the coast of Galicia, based on the system of Linnaeus, in Spanish, 1788, in duodecimo.

41 Descripcion de diferentes piezas de historia natural las mas del ramo maritimo by Don Antonio Parra [1739-after 1800], in Spanish, Havana, 1787 small in quarto, with seventy-five plates. It is one of the most useful works for information on the fishes of the Gulf of Mexico, not so much for the text as for the very exact illustrations of these fishes. [On Parra and his fishes, see Poey y Aloy (Felipe), “Enumeration of the fish described and figured by Parra, scientifically named by Felipe Poey,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), series 2, vol. 15, 1863, pp. 174-180; González (Armando G.), Antonio Parra en la ciencia hispanoamericana del siglo XVIII, Havana: Editorial Academia, 1989, 159 p., ills.]

42 The Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin began to publish its works in 1775 in octavo in German [see Kronick (David A.), A history of scientific and technical periodicals: The origins and development of the scientific and technical press, 1665-1790, Metuchen (New Jersey): Scarecrow Press, 1976, p. 105]. The first four volumes were titled Beschäftigungen der Berlinischen Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde; the next eleven, from 1780 to 1794, Schriften der Berlinischen Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde; the series was continued in quarto from 1795 to 1803 under the title Neue Schriften, Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin. The earlier, octavo collection contains several memoirs on ichthyology by [Marcus] Bloch [1779, 1780, 1785, 1788, 1792], [Bernhard] Wartmann [1777, 1783], [Heinrich] Sander [1779], [Petrus Camper, 1787], [Johann David] Schoepff [1788], [Johann Julius] Walbaum [1783, 1784], [Franz von Paula] Schrank [1780, 1781, 1783], and [Petrus Christian] Abildgaard [1792].

43 Naturforscher, an interesting collection, printed at Halle from 1774 to 1804 in thirty parts. It contains, among other things, ichthyological memoirs by [Johann] Hermann [1781, 1782] and [Heinrich] Sander [1781], and by [Johann David] Schoepff on the American perch [1784] and the pike [1784].

44 Joannes Christophorus Wulff [died 1767], physician at Königsberg, published Ichthyologia, cum amphibiis regni Borussici methodo Linneana disposita, Regiomonti, 1765. This is a catalog of fifty-three species, occasionally ill named. For example, he confuses a whitefish (marène) with a minnow (cyprin).

45 [Jacob Benjamin] Fischer [1731-1793], an essay on the natural history of Livonia, in German, Leipzig, in octavo, 1778, reprinted [at Königsberg] in 1791; he discusses forty species of fishes.

46 Johann Christoph Birkholz published before Bloch, in German, an economic description of fishes found in the waters of the Electoral March of Brandenburg, Berlin, 1770, in octavo.

47 Heinrich Sander [1754-1782] published some materials for a natural history of fishes of the Rhine in Naturforscher, vol. 15 [1781], and in the same periodical, vol. 25 [1791], some remarks on this memoir were published by Bernard Sebastian Nau [1766-1845].

48 [Ulrich Jasper] Seetzen [1767-1811] published a catalog of the fishes of the principality of Jever in Westphalia in the first volume [1794] of the Zoologische Annalen (Weimar), edited by [Friedrich Albrecht Anton] Meyer [1768-1795].

49 Nathanael Gottfried Leske [1751-1786], professor at Leipzig, published Ichthyologiae Lipsiensis specimen, Leipzig, 1774, in octavo, in which there are detailed descriptions of seventeen species of minnows (cyprins).

50 Baron Carl von Meidinger [1750-1820], secretary to the emperors Joseph II and Leopold II, was the author of a collection of handsome colored illustrations titled Icones piscium Austriae indigenorum, in five decades, in-folio, Vienna, 1785-1794, in which are represented several interesting fishes of the Danube and its tributaries.

51 Franz von Paula Schrank, professor at Ingolstadt, born in 1747 [died 1835]. In [his description of] a journey through Bavaria, Munich, 1786, he describes one or two trouts (truites).

52 [Pennant, see chapter 8, note 38], Indian Zoology, London [1769], in folio, with twelve plates; a [much expanded] second edition appeared in 1790 in quarto. [His “tiger shark” and “Ceylon wrasse” are shown in pl. 16.]

53 William Marsden [1754-1836], History of Sumatra, London, 1783. There is a French translation, Paris, 1788, two volumes in octavo. A third edition appeared in 1811 in quarto.

54 [Giovanni] Ignazio Molina [1740-1829], ex-Jesuit, wrote from memory in Italy his Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chili, Bologna, 1782, in octavo, translated into French by Gruvel, Paris, 1789, in octavo. The second Italian edition was published at Bologna, 1810, in quarto. This book contains several descriptions that need to be verified.

55 Johann Reinhold Forster [see note 13 above], Catalogue of the Animals of North America, London, 1771, in octavo; [see also] “An Account of Some Curious Fishes, Sent from Hudson’s Bay,” published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. 63 [1773].

56 [Johann David Schoepff (1752-1800), “Beschreibungen einiger nordamerikanischer Fische,” 1788], a remarkable memoir published in Schriften der Berlinischen Naturforschenden Freunde, vol. 8, the best thing we had until the works of Mitchill [see chapter 13, note 30]. [For biographical information on Schoepff, see Adler (Kraig) (ed.), Contributions to the history of herpetology, Oxford (Ohio): Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 1989, pp. 14-15.]

57 [Pennant, see chapter 8, note 38], in the [ “Supplement” or] third volume of his Arctic Zoology [1787].

58 Martinus Houttuyn, in addition to his memoir on the fishes of Japan cited above [Houttuyn (Martinus), “Beschryving van eenige Japanse visschen, en andere zee-schepzelen,” Verhandelingen van de Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (Haarlem), vol. 20, no. 2, 1782, pp. 311-350], published one on the eggs of sharks [1764] and another on exotic fishes [1765].

59 Johann Hermann, professor of natural history at Strasbourg (1738-1800), author of several memoirs included in German periodicals, of special interest being his description of the genus Sternoptyx [1781]. He gives his views on the relationships of fishes in his Tabula affinitatum animalium, 1783, one volume in quarto, and describes some new species in his Observationes zoologicae, 1804, one volume in quarto.

60 Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, born in the See of Trent in 1723 [died 1788], professor [of mineralogy] at Schemnitz and then [professor of chemistry and botany] at Pavia, wrote about fishes in his Deliciae florae et faunae insubricae [Ticini, 1786-1788, three parts in folio].

61 [A. Sevastianov], Nova Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae (St Petersburg), vol. 13 [1802].