Albert C. L. G. Günther

“ 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 various editions of the "Règne animal." His industry equalled his genius: he opened connections with almost every accessible part of the globe; not only French travellers and naturalists, but also Germans, Englishmen, Americans, rivalled one another to assist him with collections ”

“ His desire of giving a new name to every individual, to every small assemblage of species wherever practicable, or of changing an old name, detracts not a little from the satisfaction with which his works would be used otherwise. It is also surprising that a man with his anatomical knowledge and unusual facilities should have been satisfied with the merely external examination of the specimens. But none of his numerous articles contain anything relating to the anatomy, physiology, or habits of the fishes which came under his notice ”

“ He says that "the special characteristics of the true fishes consist in the branchiæ and fins, the majority having four fins, but those of an elongate form, as the eels, having two only. Some, as the Muræna, lack the fins altogether. The Rays swim with their whole body, which is spread out. The branchiæ are sometimes furnished with an opercle, sometimes without one, as is the case in the cartilaginous fishes. . . . No fish has hairs or feathers; most are covered with scales, but some have a rough or smooth skin. The tongue is hard, often toothed ”

“ But a great portion of the primordial cranium remains cartilaginous. The membrane-bones which cover the upper and lower surfaces of the brain-case are so much developed as to cause the underlying cartilage to disappear, so that a large vacuity or fontanelle exists in the substance of the upper as well as lower cartilaginous wall. Of ossifications belonging to the primordial skull must be noticed the single occipital with a mastoid on each side. ”

“ The number of fishes known to Aristotle seems to have been about 115, all of which are inhabitants of the Ægean Sea.
That one man should have discovered so many truths, and formed so sure a base for Zoology, is less surprising than the fact that for about eighteen centuries a science which seemed to offer particular attractions to men gifted with power of observation, was no farther advanced. Yet this is the case. Aristotle's disciples, as well as his successors, remained satisfied to be his copiers or commentators, and to collect fabulous stories or vague notions. ”

“ Cuvier himself, at a late period of his life, seems to have grown indifferent as to the exact definition of his species: a failing commonly observed among Zoologists when attention to descriptive details becomes to them a tedious task. What is more surprising is, that a man of his anatomical and physiological knowledge should have overlooked the fact that secondary sexual characters are developed in fishes as in any other class of animals, and that fishes undergo great changes during growth ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Holocephali differ from the other Chondropterygians in several important points of the structure of their skeleton, and approach unmistakably certain Ganoids. That their spinal column is persistently notochordal has been mentioned already. Their palatal apparatus, with the suspensorium, coalesces with the skull, the mandible articulating with a short apophysis of the cranial cartilage. The mandible is simple, without anterior symphysis. The spine with which the dorsal fin is armed articulates with a neural apophysis, and is not immovably attached to it, as in the Sharks. ”

“ Sometimes these organs are enormously enlarged, their great size indicating that the fish is either nocturnal, or lives at a depth to which only a part of the sun's rays penetrate. On the other hand, small eyes occur in fishes inhabiting muddy places, or great depths to which scarcely any light descends, or in fishes in which the want of an organ of sight is compensated by the development of other organs of sense. In a few fishes, more particularly in those inhabiting caves or the greatest depths of the ocean, the eyes have become quite rudimentary and hidden under the skin. ”

“ The chief function of these fins being to balance the body of the fish whilst swimming, it is evident that in fishes moving during a great part of their life over swampy ground, or through more or less consistent mud, this function of the ventral fins ceases, and that nature can readily dispense with these organs altogether. ”

“ When the fish wants to turn towards the left, he gives a stroke of the tail towards the right, the right pectoral acting sunultaneously, whilst the left remains adpressed to the body. Thus the pectoral fins assist in the progressive motions of the fish, but rather directing its course than acting as powerful propellers. ”

“ The nasal excavation in the skull is rather lateral than inferior. The ethmoidal region is generally much produced, forming the base of the long projecting snout. The suspensorium is movably attached to the side of the skull, and consists of two pieces, a hyomandibular and a symplectic, which now appears for the first time as a separate piece, and to which the hyoid is attached. The palato-maxillary apparatus is more complex than in the Sharks and Dipnoi ”

“ The eyes have no lids; nor are any ears or nostrils visible, for what takes the place of nostrils is a blind cavity. Nevertheless they have the senses of tasting, smelling, and hearing. All have blood. All scaly fishes are oviparous, but the cartilaginous fishes (with the exception of the Sea-devil, which Aristotle places along with them) are viviparous. All have a heart, liver, and gall-bladder ”

“ Each lateral muscle is divided by a median longitudinal groove into a dorsal and ventral half; the depression in its middle is filled by an embryonal muscular substance which contains a large quantity of fat and blood-vessels, and therefore differs from ordinary muscle by its softer consistency, and by its colour which is reddish or grayish. ”

“ The spines can be erected or depressed at the will of the fish; if in the depressed position the spines cover one another completely, their points lying in the same line, the fish is called homacanth; but if the spines are asymmetrical, alternately broader on one side than on the other, the fish is called heteracanth. ”

“ The distinctions between cycloid and ctenoid scales, between placoid and ganoid fishes are vague, and can hardly be maintained. As far as the living and post-cretacean forms are concerned, the vantage-ground gained by Cuvier was abandoned by him; and therefore his system could never supersede that of his predecessors, and finally shared the fate of every classification based on the modifications of one organ only. But Agassiz has the merit of having opened an immense new field of research by his study of the infinite variety of fossil forms. ”

“ The primordial cranium of the Dipnoi is cartilaginous, but with more or less extensive ossifications in its occipital, basal, or lateral portions, and with large tegumentary bones, the arrangement of which varies in the different genera. There is no separate suspensorium for the lower jaw. A strong process descends from the cranial cartilage, and offers by means of a double condyle (Fig. 35 s) attachment to corresponding articulary surfaces of the lower jaw. ”

“ When his descriptions and the arrangement of his materials evoked some criticism, it must be remembered that, at the time when he commenced his labours, and for many years afterwards, he stood alone, without the aid of a previously named collection on which to base his first researches, and without other works but that of Cuvier and Valenciennes. He had to create for himself a method of distinguishing species and of describing them ”

“ With very few exceptions (such as Ausonius, who wrote a small poem, in which he describes from his own observations the fishes of the Mosel) authors entirely abandoned original research. And it was not until about the middle of the sixteenth century that Ichthyology made a new step in advance by the appearance of Belon, Rondelet, and Salviani, who almost simultaneously published their grand works, by which the idea of species was established definitely and for all times. ”

“ Hence he considered Lophius, Cyclopterus, Syngnathus to be cartilaginous fishes. Adopting the position and development of the ventral fins as a highly important character, he was obliged to associate fishes with rudimentary and inconspicuous ventral fins, like Trichiurus, Xiphias, etc., with the true Eels. The important category of a "family" appears now in Cuvier's system fully established as that intermediate between genus and order. Important changes in Cuvier's system have been made and proposed by his successors, but in the main it is still that of the present day. ”

“ There is a great amount of variation as regards the degree in which the primordial cranium persists; it is always more or less replaced by bone; frequently it disappears entirely, but in some fishes, like the Salmonidæ or Esocidæ, the cartilage persists to the same or even to a greater extent than in the Ganoidei holostei. Added to the bones preformed in cartilage are a great number of membrane-bones. The different kinds of these membrane-bones occur with greater or less constancy throughout this sub-class ”

“ All Ganoids possess a separate gill-cover. [2]
The diversity in the development of the Ganoid skeleton is well exemplified by the few representatives of the order in the existing Fish-fauna. Lowest in the scale (in this respect) are those with a persistent notochord, and an autostylic skull, that is, a skull without separate suspensorium—the fishes constituting the sub-order Dipnoi, of which the existing representatives are Lepidosiren, Protopterus, and Ceratodus, and the extinct (as far as demonstrated at present) Dipterus, Chirodus (and Phaneropleuron ?) ”

“ Transverse line from lateral line to ventral fin.
The scales of many fishes are modified for special purposes, especially to form weapons of defence or a protective armour, but the details of such modifications are better mentioned under the several families in which they occur. All scales are continually growing and wasting away on the surface, and it seems that some fish, at least,—for instance, Salmonoids—"shed" them periodically; during the progress of this shedding the outlines of the scales are singularly irregular. ”

“ There is an articulary cavity at its upper anterior angle for its junction with the hyomandibular. The oblong lamella below the operculum is the suboperculum (32) , and the one in front of this latter, below the horizontal limb of the præoperculum, is the interoperculum (33) , which is connected by ligament with the angular piece of the lower jaw, and is also attached to the outer face of the hyoid, so that the gill-covers cannot open or shut without the hyoid apparatus executing a corresponding movement. ”

“ The mesotympanic or symplectic (31) appears as a styliform prolongation of the lower part of the hyomandibular; is entirely cartilaginous in the young, but nearly entirely ossified in the adult. The position of this bone is noteworthy, because, directly inwards of its cartilaginous junction with the hyomandibular, there is situated the uppermost piece of the hyoid arch, the stylo-hyal. The next bone of the series is the pretympanic or metapterygoid (27) , a flat bone forming a bridge towards the pterygoid, and not rarely absent in the teleosteous sub-class. ”

“ M. Malpighi (1628-94) , who examined the optic nerve of the sword-fish; the celebrated J. Swammerdam (1637-80) , who described the intestines of numerous fishes; and J. Duverney (1648-1730) , who entered into detailed researches of the organs of respiration.
A new era in the history of Ichthyology commences with Ray, Willughby, and Artedi, who were the first to recognise the true principles by which the natural affinities of animals should be determined. Their labours stand in so intimate a connection with each other that they represent only one stride in the progress of this science. ”

“ This discovery led to further considerations [2] of the relative characters of Müller's sub-classes, and to the system which is followed in the present work.
Having followed the development of the ichthyological system down to the latest time, we have to retrace our steps to enumerate the most important contributions to Ichthyology which appeared contemporaneously with or subsequently to the publication of Cuvier and Valenciennes's great work. As in other branches of Zoology, activity increased almost with every year; and for convenience's sake we may arrange these works in three rubrics. ”