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CHAP. 16.—HOW MANY KINDS OF FISH THERE ARE.

There are seventy-four1 species of fishes, exclusive of those that are covered with crusts; the kinds of which are thirty in number. We shall, on another occasion,2 speak of each individually; but, for the present, we shall treat only of the nature of the more remarkable ones.

1 Hardouin suggests that the proper reading here is probably 144, because in B. xxxii. c. 51, Pliny speaks of 174 different kinds of fishes, and here he says that the crustacea are thirty in number. Daubenton speaks of the species of fishes as being 866 in number, while Lacépede says that he had examined more than a thousand, but that was far below the real number. Cuvier mentions specimens of about 6000 kinds of fishes, in the Cabinet du Roi. Ajasson remarks upon the learned investigations of Cuvier on this subject, and his researches in Sumatra, Java, Kamschatka, New Zealand, New Guinea, and elsewhere, for the purpose of increasing the list of the known kinds of fishes.

2 B. xxx. c. 53.

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