Chapter XXII: The History of Ichthyology (2)

In Japan, following the scattering papers of Thunberg, Tilesius, and Houttuyn, and the monumental work of Schlegel, numerous species have been recorded by James Carson Brevoort, Günther, Gill, Eduard Nyström, Hilgendorf, and others. About 1884 Steindachner and Döderlein published the valuable "Fische Japans," based on the collections made about Tokyo by Dr. Döderlein. In 1881, Motokichi Namiye, then assistant curator in the Imperial University, published the first list of Japanese fishes by a native author. In 1900, Dr. Chiyomatsu Ishikawa, on the "Fishes of Lake Biwa," was the first Japanese author to venture to name a new species of fish (_Pseudogobio zezera_). This reticence was due not wholly to lack of self-confidence, but rather to the scattered condition of the literature of Japanese ichthyology. For this reason no Japanese author has ever felt that any given undetermined species was really new. Other Japanese ichthyologists of promise are Dr. Kamakichi Kishinouye, in charge of the Imperial fisheries Bureau, Dr. Shinnosuke Matsubara, director of the Imperial Fisheries Institute, Keinosuke Otaki, S. Hatta, S. Nozawa, T. Kitahara, and Michitaro Sindo, and we may look for others among the pupils of Dr. Kakichi Mitsukuri, the distinguished professor of zoology in the Imperial University.

KAKICHI MITSUKURI.

CARL H. EIGENMANN.

FRANZ HILGENDORF.]

The most recent, as well as the most extensive, studies of the fishes of Japan were made in 1999 by the present writer and his associate, John Otterbein Snyder.

The scanty pre-Cuvieran work on the fishes of North America has been already noticed. Contemporary with the early work of Cuvier is the worthy attempt of Professor Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764-1831) to record in systematic fashion the fishes of New York. Soon after followed the admirable work of Charles Alexandre Le Sueur (1789-1840), artist and naturalist, who was the first to study the fishes of the Great Lakes and the basin of the Ohio. Le Sueur's engravings of fishes, in the early publications of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, are still among the most satisfactory representations of the species to which they refer. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), the third of this remarkable but very dissimilar trio, published numerous papers descriptive of the species he had seen or heard of in his various botanical rambles. This culminated in his elaborate but untrustworthy "Ichthyologia Ohiensis." The fishes of Ohio received later a far more conscientious though less brilliant treatment at the hands of Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland (1793-1877), an eminent physician of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1842 the amiable and scholarly James Ellsworth Dekay (1799-1851) published his detailed report on the fishes of the "New York Fauna," and a little earlier (1836) in the "Fauna Boreali-Americana" Sir John Richardson (1787-1865) gave a most valuable and accurate account of the fishes of the Great Lakes and Canada. Almost simultaneously, Rev. Zadock Thompson (1796-1856) gave a catalogue of the fishes of Vermont, and David Humphreys Storer (1804-91) began his work on the fishes of Massachusetts, finally expanded into a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" (1846) and a "History of the Fishes of Massachusetts" (1853-67). Dr. John Edwards Holbrook (1794-1871), of Charleston, published (1855-60) his invaluable record of the fishes of South Carolina, the promise of still more important work, which was prevented by the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States. The monograph on Lake Superior (1850) and other publications of Louis Agassiz (1807-73) have been already noticed. One of the first of Agassiz's students was Charles Girard (1822-95), who came with him from Switzerland, and, in association with Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-87), described the fishes from the United States Pacific Railway Surveys (1858) and the United States and Mexican Boundary Surveys (1859). Professor Baird, primarily an ornithologist, became occupied with executive matters, leaving Girard to finish these studies of the fishes. A large part of the work on fishes published by the United States National Museum and the United States Fish Commission has been made possible through the direct help and inspiration of Professor Baird. Among those engaged in this work, James William Milner (1841-80), Marshall Macdonald (1836-95), and Hugh M. Smith may be noted.

Most eminent, however, among the students and assistants of Professor Baird was his successor, George Brown Goode (1851-96), one of the most accomplished of American naturalists, whose greatest work, "Oceanic Ichthyology," published in collaboration with his long associate, Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean, was barely finished at the time of his death. The work of Theodore Nicholas Gill and Edward Drinker Cope has been already noticed.

Other faunal writers of more or less prominence were William Dandridge Peck (1763-1822) in New Hampshire, George Suckley (1830-69) in Oregon, James William Milner (1841-80) in the Great Lake Region, Samuel Stehman Haldeman (1812-80) in Pennsylvania, William O. Ayres (1817-91) in Connecticut and California; Dr. John G. Cooper (died 1902), Dr. William P. Gibbons and Dr. William N. Lockington (died 1902) in California; Philo Romayne Hoy (1816-93) studied the fishes of Wisconsin, Charles Conrad Abbott those of New Jersey, Silas Stearns (1859-88) those of Florida, Stephen Alfred Forbes and Edward W. Nelson those of Illinois, Oliver Perry Hay, later known for his work on fossil forms, those of Mississippi, Alfredo Dugés, of Guanajuato, those of Central Mexico.

Samuel Garman, at Harvard University, a student of Agassiz, is the author of numerous valuable papers, the most notable being on the sharks and on the deep-sea collections of the _Albatross_ in the Galapagos region, the last illustrated by plates of most notable excellence. Other important monographs of Garman treat of the Cyprinodonts and the Discoboli.

The present writer began a "Systematic Catalogue of the Fishes of North America" in 1875 in association with his gifted friend, Herbert Edson Copeland (1849-76), whose sudden death, after a few promising beginnings, cut short the undertaking. Later, Charles Henry Gilbert (1860-), a student of Professor Copeland, took up the work and in 1883 a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" was completed by Jordan and Gilbert. Later, Dr. Gilbert has been engaged in studies of the fishes of Panama, Alaska, and other regions, and the second and enlarged edition of the "Synopsis" was completed in 1898, as the "Fishes of North and Middle America," in collaboration with another of the writer's students, Dr. Barton Warren Evermann. A monographic review of the Fishes of Puerto Rico was later (1900) completed by Dr. Evermann, together with numerous minor works. Other naturalists whom the writer may be proud to claim as students are Charles Leslie McKay (1854-83), drowned in Bristol Bay, Alaska, while engaged in explorations, and Charles Henry Bollman (1868-89), stricken with fever in the Okefinokee Swamps in Georgia. Still others are Dr. Carl B. Eigenmann, the indefatigable investigator of Brazilian fishes and of the blind fishes of the caves; Dr. Oliver Peebles Jenkins, the first thorough explorer of the fishes of Hawaii; Dr. Alembert Winthrop Brayton, explorer of the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains; Dr. Seth Eugene Meek, explorer of Mexico; John Otterbein Snyder, explorer of Mexico, Japan, and Hawaii; Edwin Chapin Starks, explorer of Puget Sound and Panama and investigator of fish osteology. Still other naturalists of the coming generation, students of the present writer and of his lifelong associate, Professor Gilbert, have contributed in various degrees to the present fabric of American ichthyology. Among them are Mrs. Rosa Smith Eigenmann, Dr. Joseph Swain, Wilbur Wilson Thoburn (1859-99), Frank Cramer, Alvin Seale, Albert Jefferson Woolman, Philip H. Kirsch (1860-1902), Cloudsley Rutter (died 1903), Robert Edward Snodgrass, James Francis Abbott, Arthur White Greeley, Edmund Heller, Henry Weed Fowler, Keinosuke Otaki, Michitaro Sindo, and Richard Crittenden McGregor.

HERBERT EDSON COPELAND.

CHARLES HENRY GILBERT.

BARTON WARREN EVERMANN.]

Other facts and conclusions of importance have been contributed by various persons with whom ichthyology has been an incident rather than a matter of central importance.

=The Fossil Fishes.=[148]--The study of fossil fishes was begun systematically during the first decades of the nineteenth century, for it was then realized that of fossils of back-boned animals, fishes were the only ones which could be determined from early Palæozoic to recent horizons, and that from the diversity of their forms they could serve as reliable indications of the age of rocks. At a later time, when the evolution of vertebrates began to be studied, fishes were examined with especial care with a view of determining the ancestral line of the Amphibians. The earliest work upon fossil fishes is, as one would naturally expect, of a purely systematic value. Anatomical observations were scanty and crude, but as the material for study increased, a more satisfactory knowledge was gained of the structures of the various major groups of fishes; and finally by a comparison of anatomical results important light came to be thrown upon more fundamental problems.

The study of fossil fishes can be divided for convenience into three periods: (I) That which terminated in the _magnum opus_ of Louis Agassiz; (II) that of the systematists whose major works appeared between 1845 and the recent publication of the Catalogue of Fossil Fishes of the British Museum (from this period date many important anatomical observations); and (III) that of morphological work, roughly from 1870 to the present. During this period detailed consideration has been given to the phylogeny of special structures, to the probable lines of descent of the groups of fossil fishes, and to the relationships of terrestrial to aquatic vertebrates.

=First Period.=--=The Work of Louis Agassiz.=--The real beginning of our knowledge of fossil fishes dates from the publication of the classic volumes of Agassiz, "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (Neuchâtel, 1833-44)." There had previously existed but a fragmentary and widely scattered literature; the time was ripe for a great work which should bring together a knowledge of this important vertebrate fauna and the museums throughout Europe had been steadily growing in their collections of fossils. Especially ripe, too, since the work of Cuvier (1769-1832) had been completed and the classic anatomical papers of J. Müller (1802-56) were appearing. And Agassiz (1807-73) was eminently the man for this mission. At the age of one and twenty he had already mapped out the work, and from this time he devoted sixteen active years to its accomplishment. One gets but a just idea of the personality of Agassiz when he recalls that the young investigator while in an almost penniless position contrived to travel over a large part of Europe, mingle with the best people of his day, devote almost his entire time to research, employ draughtsmen and lithographers, support his own printing-house, and in the end publish his "Poissons Fossiles" in a fashion which would have done credit to the wealthiest amateur. With tireless energy he collected voluminous notes and drawings numberless; he corresponded with collectors all over Europe and prevailed upon them to loan him tons of specimens; in the meanwhile he collated industriously the early but fragmental literature in such works as those of de Blainville, Münster, Murchison, Buckland, Egerton, Redfield, W. C. Williamson, and others. Hitherto less than 300 species of fossil fishes were known; at the end of Agassiz's work about 900 were described and many of them figured.

It is easy to see that such a work made a ready basis of future studies. Doubtless, too, much is owing to the personal energy of Agassiz that such keen interest was focused in the collection and study of fossil fishes during the middle of the nineteenth century. The actual value of Agassiz's work can hardly be overestimated; his figures and descriptions are usually clear and accurate. And it is remarkable, perhaps, that in view of the very wide field which he covered that his errors are not more glaring and numerous. Upon the purely scientific side, however, one must confess that the "Poissons Fossiles" is of minor importance for the reason that as time has gone by it has been found to yield no generalizations of fundamental value. The classification of fishes advocated by Agassiz, based upon the nature of the scales, has been shown to be convenient rather than morphological. This indeed Agassiz himself appears to realize in a letter written to Humboldt, but on the other hand he regards his creation of the now discarded order of _Ganoids_, which was based upon integumental characters, as his most important contribution to the general study of ichthyology. And although there passed through his hands a series of forms more complete than has perhaps been seen by any later ichthyologist,[149] a series which demonstrates the steps in the evolution of the various families and even orders of fishes, he is nowhere led to such important philosophical conclusions as was, for example, his contemporary, Johannes Müller. And even to his last day, in spite of the light which palæontology must have given him, he denied strenuously the truth of the doctrine of evolution, a result the more remarkable since he has even given in graphic form the geological occurrence of the various groups of fishes in a way which suggests closely a modern phylogenetic table, and since at various times he has emphasized the dictum that the history of the individual is but the epitomized history of the race. The latter statement, which has been commonly attributed to Agassiz, is clearly of much earlier origin; it was definitely formulated by von Baer and Meckel, the former of whom even as early as 1834 pronounced himself a distinct evolutionist.

ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD.

KARL A. ZITTEL.

CHARLES R. EASTMAN.]

=Second Period.=--=Systematic Study of Fossil Fishes.=--On the ground planted by Agassiz, many important works sprang up within the next decades. In England a vigorous school of palæichthyologists was soon flourishing. Many papers of Egerton date from this time, and the important work of Owen on the structure of fossil teeth and the often-quoted papers of Huxley in the "British Fossil Remains." Among other workers may be mentioned James Powrie, author of a number of papers upon Scottish Devonian fossils; the enthusiastic Hugh Miller, stone-mason and geologist; Montague Brown, Thomas Atthey, J. Young, and W. J. Barkas, students upon Coal Measure fishes; E. Ray Lankester, some of whose early papers deal with pteraspids; E. T. Newton, author of important works on chimæroids. The extensive works of J. W. Davis deal with fishes of many groups and many horizons. Mr. Davis, like Sir Philip Gray Egerton, was an amateur whose devotion did much to advance the study of fossil fishes. The dean of British palæichthyology is at present Dr. R. H. Traquair, of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Arts. During four decades he has devoted himself to his studies with rare energy and success, author of a host of shorter papers and numerous memoirs and reports. Finally, and belonging to a younger generation of palæontologists, is to be named Arthur Smith Woodward, curator of vertebrate palæontology of the British Museum. Dr. Woodward has already contributed many scores of papers to palæichthyology, besides publishing a four-volume Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes of the British Museum, a compendial work whose value can only be appreciated adequately by specialists.

In the United States the study of fossil fishes was taken up by J. H. and W. C. Redfield, father and son, prior to the work of Agassiz, and there has been since that time an active school of American workers. Agassiz himself, however, is not to be included in this list, since his interest in extinct fishes became almost entirely unproductive during his life in America. Foremost among these workers was John Strong Newberry (1822-92), of Columbia College, whose publications deal with fishes of many horizons and whose work upon this continent is not unlike that of Agassiz in Europe. He was the author of many state reports, separate contributions, and two monographs, one upon the palæozoic fishes of North America, the other upon the Triassic fishes. Among the earlier palæontologists were Orestes H. St. John, a pupil of Agassiz at Harvard, and A. H. Worthen (1813-88), director of the Geological Survey of Illinois; also W. Gibbes and Joseph Leidy. The late E. D. Cope (1840-97) devoted a considerable portion of his labors to the study of extinct fishes. E. W. Claypole, of Buchtel College, is next to be mentioned as having produced noteworthy contributions to our knowledge of sharks, palæaspids, and arthrodires, as has also A. A. Wright, of Oberlin College. Among other workers may be mentioned O. P. Hay, of the American Museum; C. R. Eastman, of Harvard, author of important memoirs upon arthrodires and other forms; Alban Stewart, a student of Dr. S. W. Williston at Kansas University, and Bashford Dean. Among Canadian palæontologists G. F. Matthew deserves mention for his work on Cyathaspis, Principal Dawson for interesting references to Mesozoic fishes, and J. F. Whiteaves for his studies upon the Devonian fishes of Scaumenac Bay.

Belgian palæontologists have also been active in their study of fishes. Here we may refer to the work of Louis Dollo, of Brussels, of Max Lohest, of P. J. van Beneden, of L. G. de Koninck, of T. C. Winckler, and of R. Storms, the last of whom has done interesting work on Tertiary fishes.

Foremost among Russian palæichthyologists is to be named C. H. Pander, long-time Academician in St. Petersburg, whose elaborate studies of extinct lung-fishes, ostracophores, and crossopterygians published between 1856 and 1860 will long stand as models of careful work. We should also refer to the work of H. Asmuss and H. Trautschold, E. Eichwald and of Victor Rohon, the last named having published many important papers upon ostracophores during his residence in St. Petersburg.

German palæichthyologists include Otto Jaekel, of Berlin; O. M. Reis of the Oberbergamt, in Munich; A. von Koenen, of Göttingen; A. Wagner, E. Koken, and K. von Zittel. Among Austro-Hungarians are Anton Fritsch, author of the _Fauna der Gaskohleformations Boemens_; Rudolf Kner, an active student of living fishes as well, as is also Franz Steindachner.

French palæichthyologists are represented by the veteran H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, V. Thollière, M. Brongniart, and F. Priem. In Italy Francesco Bassani, of Naples, is the author of many important works dealing with Mesozoic and Tertiary forms; also was Baron Achille di Zigno. Robert Collett, of Bergen, and G. Lindström are worthy representatives of Scandinavia in kindred work.

=Third Period.=--=Morphological Work on Fossil Fishes.=--Among the writers who have dealt with the problems of the relationships of the Ostracophores as well as _Palæospondylus_ and the Arthrodires may be named Traquair, Huxley, Newberry, Smith Woodward, Rohon, Eastman, and Dean; most recently William Patten. Upon the phylogeny of the sharks Traquair, A. Fritsch, Hasse, Cope, Brongniart, Jaekel, Reis, Eastman, and Dean. On Chimæroid morphology mention may be made of the papers of A. S. Woodward, Reis, Jaekel, Eastman, C. D. Walcott, and Dean. As to Dipnoan relationships the paper of Louis Dollo is easily of the first value; of especial interest, too, is the work of Eastman as to the early derivation of the Dipnoan dentition. In this regard a paper of Rohon is noteworthy, as is also that of Richard Semon on the development of the dentition of recent Neoceratodus, since it contains a number of references to extinct types. Interest notes on Dipnoan fin characters have been given by Traquair. In the morphology of Ganoids, the work of Traquair and A. S. Woodward takes easily the foremost rank. Other important works are those of Huxley, Cope, A. Fritsch, and Oliver P. Hay.

=Anatomists.=--Still more difficult of enumeration is the long list of those who have studied the anatomy of fishes usually in connection with the comparative anatomy or development of other animals. Pre-eminent among these are Karl Ernst von Baer, Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Louis Agassiz, Johannes Müller, Carl Vogt, Carl Gegenbaur, William Kitchen Parker, Francis M. Balfour, Thomas Henry Huxley, Meckel, H. Rathke, Richard Owen, Kowalevsky, H. Stannius, Joseph Hyrtl, Gill, Boulenger, and Bashford Dean. Other names of high authority are those of Wilhelm His, Kölliker, Bakker, Rosenthal, Gottsche, Miklucho-Macleay, Weber, Hasse, Retzius, Owsjannikow, H. Müller, Stieda, Marcusen, J. A. Ryder, E. A. Andrews, T. H. Morgan, G. B. Grassi, R. Semon, Howard Ayers, R. R. Wright, J. P. McMurrich, C. O. Whitman, A. C. Eyclesheimer, E. Pallis, Jacob Reighard, and J. B. Johnston.

Besides all this, there has risen, especially in the United States, Great Britain, Norway, and Canada and Australia, a vast literature of commercial fisheries, fish culture, and angling, the chief workers in which fields we may not here enumerate even by name.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] For these paragraphs on the history of the study of fossil fishes the writer is indebted to the kind interest of Professor Bashford Dean.

[149] Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward excepted.