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Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology / Tableau historique des progrès de l’ichtyologie

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Georges Cuvier

Part three/Troisième partie. The Beginnings of Modern Ichthyology/Les débuts de l'ichtyologie moderne

7. Contributions of Travelers in the East and West

Texte intégral

  • 1 Willem Bosman [born 1672], employed by the Dutch West India Company in Africa, published in 1705 at (...)
  • 2 François Leguat was born at Bresse in 1637, expatriated following the revocation of the Edict of Na (...)
  • 3 Jean Baptiste Labat, a Dominican missionary, was born in Paris in 1663, served on the island of Mar (...)
  • 4 Cornelius de Bruin [1652-1727], a Dutch painter and author of two travel books in which he presents (...)
  • 5 Paul Lucas, born at Rouen in 1664, died in 1737, made a number of journeys to the Levant and gave a (...)
  • 6 Peter Kolb, born in 1675 at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, was sent to Cape Town in 1704, returned to Europ (...)

1It is scarcely worthwhile to name here some travelers of the era, such as Bosman,1 Leguat,2 Labat,3 De Bruin,4 Lucas,5 and Kolb,6 who were not naturalists at all and produced only a few inexact drawings of fishes and some articles often mixed with anecdotes. But we cannot treat so lightly two collections of fish drawings made in the Dutch colonies in the East Indies, which were used in publications by Ruysch, Valentijn, and Renard.

  • 7 Cornelis de Vlamingh [1678-1735] had been boatswain for the Dutch East India Company in Bengal and (...)
  • 8 [Renard’s] Poissons, écrevisses et crabes, de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires, que l’o (...)
  • 9 Samuel Fallours, minister to the sick at Ambon, who also returned [to Holland] in 1715, acknowledge (...)
  • 10 Hendrik Ruysch [see chap. 5, note 43] attributes these drawings, which are essentially the same as (...)
  • 11 François Valentijn, Protestant minister at Ambon, born at Dordrecht in 1666, died [at The Hague] in (...)

2The first collection was made for Corneille de Vlaming by an unnamed artist;7 it served as the original for the first part of Renard’s fishes of the Indies.8 The second collection was the work of a man named Samuel Fallours9 and conformed less to nature. It is presented in the second part of Renard, whose work was not published until 1754, although it had been prepared more than thirty years earlier; but as early as 1718, they were mingled together in a publication by Ruysch, which appeared at the beginning of the third edition of Jonstonus, under the shared title Theatrum animalium;10 and in 1726 Valentijn borrowed illustrations from both publications and included with them a certain number of others in the third volume of his great history of the East Indies.11

Triggerfishes
Illustration from “Zee-Tooneel,” a collection of colored drawings made by Isaäc Johannes Lamotius (1646-1718), attributed erroneously by Cuvier to Cornelis de Vlamingh (1678-1735).
Bibliothèque centrale, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Manuscript 339, pl. 74.
Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN

  • 12 [A breakdown of the number of identifiable Renard figures indicates that those of vol. 1 are signif (...)

3The descriptions provided by Ruysch and Valentijn are based on the illustrations, and the notes that Valentijn added seem very dubious; but the illustrations, especially those in the first collection, are not at all imaginary, as was believed for a long time. Pallas very early maintained, and with reason, that the illustrations are for the most part done from nature, and every day there comes to us, as proof of the good faith of the artists, one or another of the species that have been represented.12

4Depending on how clever or meticulous the artist was, it is true that nature has been more or less faithfully reproduced, but almost never are the delicate characters precisely drawn; attention is never paid to the number of fin rays or spines. But despite their faults, these collections are still indispensable, either for giving an idea of the natural colors of known species or for helping us recognize new species that travelers are bringing to us daily from those teeming seas.

  • 13 The Encyclopédie japonaise, [formerly] in the king’s library [but now in the Department of Manuscri (...)
  • 14 The other work is [known to us from two copies: one] in the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum natio (...)
  • 15 We have consulted several of these [manuscript] collections of paintings, among them a very handsom (...)

5The number of these illustrations is 459 in Renard, 527 in Valentijn, and 396 in Ruysch; but there is much duplication, and a rather large number of crustaceans should be excluded. One can compare these drawings made in the Indies with the different collections of paintings or engravings coming from China or Japan, and one might even prefer the latter, for they are often as accurate in depicting characteristics as our best European works. Among the published engravings, the Encyclopédie japonaise ought especially to be cited,13 and another volume in particular on fishes, also from Japan, which is in some libraries ;14 the species depicted are quite recognizable, and doubtless these books can give us some notion of the ichthyology of these remote countries. Several unpublished manuscript collections of paintings present even better illustrations, but they are quite rare.15

Fishes from Ambon Island
One of twenty plates that illustrate “Collectio nova piscium Amboinensium,” in Hendrik Ruysch’s 1718 edition of Joannes Jonstonus’s
Historia naturalis, vol. 1, part 1, plate 5.
Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN

  • 16 Engelbert Kaempfer was born at Lemgo, in the principality of Lippe, in 1651. He traveled to Persia (...)
  • 17 Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, a Jesuit, born at Saint-Quentin in 1682, died at La Flèche in (...)

6Kaempfer16 had some of these fishes engraved in his history of Japan, adding details taken from Japanese books and comparisons of the species with those that the Dutch were taking at the time in the Moluccas. This part of his work was copied by Charlevoix.17 We should note, however, that all these Chinese and Japanese documents, dull and mixed with fables, are almost useless as far as the texts are concerned; one can profit only from the figures, the artists being much superior to the writers.

Ican Tomtombo
A boxfish,
Tetrosomus gibbosus. From “Collectio nova piscium Amboinensium,” in Hendrik Ruysch’s 1718 edition of Joannes Jonstonus’s Historia naturalis, vol. 1, part 1, plate 5.
Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN

  • 18 Charles Plumier, born at Marseilles in 1646, entered the order of the Minims [a Catholic monastic o (...)
  • 19 The drawings of fishes are now in the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum national d’Histoire naturel (...)

7But there was one traveler at that time who worked as a true naturalist, to whom ichthyology would have been eminently grateful had his work been published while he was still alive, and that was Father Plumier.18 His reputation as a superior botanist had been made long before; but he was a good zoologist as well, and both in his native Provence and in the Antilles he made a series of numerous drawings, especially of fishes, remarkable for their detail and accuracy, lacking hardly anything more than the rendering of the correct number of spines, and the expressing of the denticulation of the opercular bones in species where this is masked by the skin while the animal is fresh.19

  • 20 It is worth noting the contemptuous tone Labat [see note 3 above] uses in speaking of a man [Plumie (...)
  • 21 [Antoine Laurent] de Jussieu [1748-1836] assured me that the monks [at the convent of the Minims at (...)
  • 22 Louis Feuillée [a monk of the order] of the Minims [see Whitmore (Patrick James Stigant), The order (...)
  • 23 Jacques Gautier d’Agoty [born in Marseilles in 1716, died at Paris in 1785], painter, [engraver, ph (...)
  • 24 Bloch gives an account of this manuscript in the preface to the third part of his great Naturgeschi (...)
  • 25 For example, Bloch [Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf K (...)

8Unfortunately, the author, little admired by the ignorant monks20 among whom he lived, died before publishing this part of his research; his manuscripts lay neglected in his monastery,21 and only a few excerpts appeared in Feuillée’s22 work and in the journals of a certain Gautier d’Agoty,23 who was not able to appreciate them. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that a copy, prepared by Plumier himself, fell into the hands of Bloch,24 who used the illustrations in his great work, but sometimes with alterations similar to those to which he subjected the drawings of Prince Maurits.25

  • 26 [Claude Aubriet, born at Chalons-sur-Marne in about 1665, became painter to the king, the king’s ca (...)
  • 27 [Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, the celebrated French botanist, professor of botany at the Jardin du (...)
  • 28 It appears that Aubriet [see note 26 above], who was paid by the page to continue the great collect (...)
  • 29 For example, Harpe bleu-doré [Harpe caeruleo-aureus] of Lacepède [Lacepède (Bernard Germain Étienne (...)

9Another copy of Plumier drawings, rather inexact and too highly colored, made for the great collection of vellums by Aubriet,26 the famous painter of Tournefort,27 was in part engraved for the Histoire naturelle des poissons by Lacepède;28 but because the latter did not always realize that these drawings were originally the same as the ones that had already appeared in Bloch’s work, there resulted several duplications. The same drawing sometimes occasioned the establishment not only of a species but also of a genus that was purely imaginary.29

Plumier’s fishes
Two examples of drawings of fishes, “remarkable for their detail and accuracy” by father Plumier.
Bibliothèque centrale, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, manuscript 31, folio 7 and manuscript 25, folio 58.
Clichés Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN

10The carelessness of Plumier’s editors should in no way detract from the esteem owed to this respectable and laborious observer. To this day we know certain species only through him, and his manuscripts prove that most of the errors that have slipped into publications produced by others of his works were not his.

Notes

1 Willem Bosman [born 1672], employed by the Dutch West India Company in Africa, published in 1705 at Utrecht, in octavo, a Voyage en Guinée, with more numerous and more exact descriptions and illustrations of animals than are given in most works of this sort. [For more on Bosman, see Tye (Alan) & Jones (Adam), “Birds and birdwatchers in West Africa, 1590-1712,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 20, no. 2, 1993, pp. 219-224.]

2 François Leguat was born at Bresse in 1637, expatriated following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes [1685], confined on Rodriguez Island from 1691 to 1693, returned to Europe in 1698, and died in London in 1735. In 1708 he published in London, in octavo, A New Voyage to the East-Indies by Francis Leguat and His Companions, in which he provides illustrations of some animals, but they seem to be drawn from memory [rather than from nature], [The “Succet or Remora” is described and pictured on p. 88.]

3 Jean Baptiste Labat, a Dominican missionary, was born in Paris in 1663, served on the island of Martinique in 1694, returned to Europe in 1706, and died in Paris in 1738. He published four works that are in some respects of interest to natural history: (1) Nouveau Voyage aux isles de l’Amérique, Paris, 1722, six volumes in duodecimo (a number of later editions were produced: The Hague in 1724 and 1738, Paris in 1738 and 1742, as well as German and Dutch translations [I have been unable to locate copies of the two 1738 editions]); (2) Nouvelle Relation de l’Afrique Occidentale, d’après les mémoires de Brue, Paris, 1728, five volumes in duodecimo (reprinted in 1732 and 1758 [I have been unable to locate copies of these two reprints]); (3) Voyage du chevalier des Marchais en Guinée et à Cayenne fait en 1725- 1727, Paris, 1730, four volumes in duodecimo (reprinted in 1731 at Amsterdam); (4) Relation historique de I’Éthiopie occidentale, part of which was translated into Italian by the Capuchin friar [Giovanni Antonio] Cavazzi [died c. 1692]; Paris, 1732, five volumes in duodecimo. [For more on Labat, see Allen (Elsa Guerdrum), “The history of American ornithology before Audubon,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series, vol. 41, no. 3, 1951, p. 439.]

4 Cornelius de Bruin [1652-1727], a Dutch painter and author of two travel books in which he presents some objects of natural history, notably some fishes: Voyage au Levant, Delft, 1700, one volume in folio; Cornelis de Bruins reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie, Amsterdam, 1714, one volume in folio, and another Amsterdam edition [Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales], 1718, two volumes in folio.

5 Paul Lucas, born at Rouen in 1664, died in 1737, made a number of journeys to the Levant and gave an account of three, under the titles Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant, Paris, 1705, two volumes in duodecimo; Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas, fait par ordre du roy dans la Grèce, l’Asie Mineure, la Macédoine et l’Afrique, Paris, 1712, two volumes; Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas, fait en M. DCCXIV, etc. par ordre de Louis XIV dans la Turquie, l’Asie, Sourie, Palestine, Haute et Basse Égypte, etc., Rouen, 1719, three volumes. These works, often reprinted, contain some accounts of the fishes of the Nile.

6 Peter Kolb, born in 1675 at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, was sent to Cape Town in 1704, returned to Europe in 1712, and died in 1726. In 1719 he published in German an account of his journey, Nuremberg, three parts in folio, which was printed again in German in two volumes, Amsterdam, 1727. There is a much abridged French translation, Amsterdam, 1741, three volumes in duodecimo. He speaks of some fishes, but they were not well observed. The illustrations seem to have been done in Europe after his return [for more on Kolb, see Rookmaaker (Leendert Cornelis), The zoological exploration of southern Africa, 1650-1790, Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1989, pp. 29-30].

7 Cornelis de Vlamingh [1678-1735] had been boatswain for the Dutch East India Company in Bengal and brought the fleet back as admiral in 1715. The original collection of his paintings is now at the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris [MS 339]; it is titled Zee-Tooneel, verbeeldende een wonderbare verscheidenhiet van zwemmende en kruipende Zee-Dieren [Sea scene, showing a marvelous variety of swimming and crawling sea animals] and contains a statement that it was drawn from nature at Vlamingh’s orders and under his supervision. [Despite this attribution to Vlamingh, all available evidence indicates that the “Vlamingh Drawings” were made by Isaac Johannes Lamotius (1646-1718), a Dutch governor of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius (see Pietsch (Theodore W.) & Holthuis (Lipke B.), “Lamotius and his marine marvels,” Natural History (New York), vol. 101, no. 10, 1992, pp. 34-39; Holthuis (Lipke B.) & Pietsch (Theodore W.), Les Planches inédites de poissons et autres animaux marins de l’Indo-Ouest Pacifique d’Isaac Johannes Lamotius, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2006, 290 p. (Des planches et des mots; 3)). For more on Vlamingh, see Schilder (Günther G.), De ontdekkingsreis van Willem Hesselsz. de Vlamingh in de Jaren 1696-1697, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976, 2 vols; Voyage to the Great South Land: Willem de Vlamingh, 1696-1697 [tr. by Heer C. de], Sydney: Royal Australian Historical Society, 1985, X + 259 p. + 24 pls; Pietsch (Theodore W.), Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols.]

8 [Renard’s] Poissons, écrevisses et crabes, de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires, que l’on trouve autour des Isles Moluques, et sur les côtes des Terres Australes…, Amsterdam, 1754, in folio. Louis Renard [born at Charlemont, 1678 or 1679, died at Amsterdam, 1746], agent of the king of England at Amsterdam, began preparing his publication in 1718 or 1720, but his death delayed for a considerable time the definitive publication, which did not take place until 1754 [on the contrary, the full version appeared in 1719; a second edition was published in 1754; see Pietsch (Theodore W.) & Rubiano (Diane M.), “On the date of publication of the first edition of Louis Renard’s Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes: Histoire naturelle des plus rares Curiositez de la mer des Indes,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 15, no. 1, 1988, pp. 63-71], under the auspices of Aernout Vosmaer [1720-1799; see Pieters (Florence F. J. M.). “Notes on the menagerie and zoological cabinet of Stadholder William V of Holland, directed by Aernout Vosmaer,” Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1980, pp. 539-563.]. Renard provided [in his book] a certificate from Frederik Julius Coyett [born at sea c. 1680, died at Batavia in 1736], to the effect that the drawings in the first part had been done in the house of his father, Balthasar Coyett [born on Formosa probably c. 1650, died at Batavia in 1725], governor of Ambon. This assertion can be reconciled with the title of Vlamingh’s collection [see note 7 above] only by supposing that two copies were made, one for Vlamingh and another for Coyett [For a facsimile edition of Louis Renard’s Poissons, écrevisses et crabes, see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols; see also Pietsch (Theodore W.), “Louis Renard’s fanciful fishes,” Natural History (New York), vol. 93, no. 1, 1984, pp. 58-67; “Fallours, S. Fishes of the Indo-West Pacific: A collection of hand colored drawings,” Natural history and travel (Antiquariaat Junk, Amsterdam), Catalogue 241, 1986, item 74, pp. 36-39; “Samuel Fallows and his ‘sirenne’ from the province of Ambon,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 18, no. 1, 1991, pp. 1-25; “On the three editions of Louis Renard’s Poissons, écrevisses et crabes: Histoire naturelle des plus rares curiositez de la mer des Indes,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 20, no. 1, 1993, pp. 49-68; Pietsch (Theodore W.) & Rubiano (Diane M.), “On the date of publication of the first edition of Louis Renard’s Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes: Histoire naturelle des plus rares Curiositez de la mer des Indes,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 15, no. 1, 1988, pp. 63-71.]

9 Samuel Fallours, minister to the sick at Ambon, who also returned [to Holland] in 1715, acknowledged himself to be the author of the second collection in a letter, also published by Renard at the beginning of his Poissons, écrevisses et crabes [1719, 1754]. [For more on Fallours, see Pietsch (Theodore W.), “Fallours, S. Fishes of the Indo-West Pacific: A collection of hand colored drawings,” Natural history and travel (Antiquariaat Junk, Amsterdam), Catalogue 241, 1986, item 74, pp. 36-39; “Samuel Fallours and his ‘sirenne’ from the province of Ambon,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 18, no. 1, 1991, pp. 1-25; Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols; Fallours (Samuel), Tropical Fishes of the East Indies—Poissons tropicaux des Indes orientales— Tropische Fische Ostindiens [text accompanying booklet in English, French, and German by Pietsch Theodore W.], Köln: Taschen GmbH, 2010, 36 pp. + 9 figs + 101 color pls.]

10 Hendrik Ruysch [see chap. 5, note 43] attributes these drawings, which are essentially the same as the ones in the two parts of Renard, to one person alone: “Quae, ibi,” he says, “conciones ad populum habebat, et caeteras res quae pertinent ad religionem per aliquot annos curabat” [Who held services there for the people, and took care of other matters related to religion for some years; see Ruysch, 1718, vol. 1, in the dedicatory epistle to Hermann Boerhaave, pt. 1, lines 27-29]; a designation that seems to refer to Fallours [see note 9 above], which makes me believe that the copy acquired by the Wetsteins, and published by Ruysch, was a copy made by Fallours, not only of his own drawings that make up the second part of Renard, but also of those that had been done previously, either for Coyett or for Vlamingh. The latter are much better than his own drawings. [For more on Hendrik Ruysch, see Engel (Hendrik), Alphabetical list of Dutch zoological cabinets and ménageries [2nd ed. prepared by Smit Pieter], Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1986, p. 236; Pietsch (Theodore W.), Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols, fig. 49.]

11 François Valentijn, Protestant minister at Ambon, born at Dordrecht in 1666, died [at The Hague] in 1727, made his first stay in the East Indian archipelago in 1685-1694 and another in 1706-1714. He is the author of a great Dutch work, in five volumes in folio, printed at Dordrecht and Rotterdam, 1724-1726, titled Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën. In the third volume, which describes [the Moluccan island of] Ambon, he wrote about natural history, but much of it is supposition and written as if by a man who is a complete stranger to the science. [For more on Valentijn, see Haan (Fonger de), “Rumphius en Valentijn als geschiedschrijvers van Ambon,” in Greshoff (Maurits) (ed.), Rumphius gedenkboek, 1702-1902, Haarlem: Koloniaal Museum, 1902, pp. 17-25; Serton (Petrus), “English summary of the introduction,” in Serton (Petrus), Raven-Hart (Rowland), Kock (Willem Johannes de) & Raidt (Edith Hildegard) (eds), François Valentyn, Description of the Cape of Good Hope with the matters concerning it, Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1971, pt. 1, ser. 2, no. 2, pp. 3-9; Beyers (Charles J. de Beer), “Valentijn, François,” in Kock (Willem J. de) (ed.), Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 3, Cape Town : Tafelberg, 1977, pp. 796; Engel (Hendrik), Alphabetical list of Dutch zoological cabinets and ménageries [2nd ed. prepared by Smit Pieter], Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1986, p. 281; Rookmaaker (Leendert Cornelis), The zoological exploration of southern Africa, 1650-1790, Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1989, pp. 30-31; Pietsch (Theodore W.), “Samuel Fallows and his ‘sirenne’ from the province of Ambon,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 18, no. 1, 1991, pp. 7-8; Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols. For a full account of the relationship between the fish drawings that appear in the publications of Ruysch (1718), Renard (1719), and Valentijn (1724-1726), see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols.]

12 [A breakdown of the number of identifiable Renard figures indicates that those of vol. 1 are significantly more accurate than those of vol. 2: of the 219 figures in vol. 1, 152 can be identified to species, 51 to genus, and 11 to family; of the 241 figures in vol. 2, 122 can be identified to species, 48 to genus, and 31 to family. Thus, only about 2 percent of the figures of vol. 1, and about 17 percent of those of vol. 2 are beyond recognition at the taxonomic level of family or below (see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Fishes, crayfishes, and crabs: Louis Renard’s natural history of the rarest curiosities of the seas of the Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, 2 vols).]

13 The Encyclopédie japonaise, [formerly] in the king’s library [but now in the Department of Manuscripts, Oriental Section, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MSS japonaise 340], consists of a number of small quarto volumes [eighty-one original fascicles bound in thirteen volumes]; the part on fishes contains illustrations of seventy-nine species.

14 The other work is [known to us from two copies: one] in the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris [MS 2321; see Boinet (Amédée) (ed.), Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 2: Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, École des Mines, École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, École Polytechnique, Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1914, p. 81]; and [the other, formerly] in the library of the late Joseph Banks [but now in the collections of the East India Office, Blackfriars Road, London (pressmark 16116.d.17)]. Lacepède cited it under the inexact title Manuscrit chinois. It is a slender volume in folio [205 x 290 mm], containing [descriptions in Japanese and] many illustrations of aquatic animals, including eighty-three of fishes, engraved on wood and colored, in large part like those in the Encyclopédie japonaise. Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat [1788-1832] kindly deciphered for us some of the articles in these books; we feel confident in citing these drawings, because the ones of known species have taught us to appreciate the fidelity of the others. [The fishes depicted in the Paris copy of the Manuscrit chinois are identified with French vernacular names added in pencil by Cuvier. The Banks copy at the East India Office was described by Yu-ying Brown (Japanese book illustration, London: British Library, 1988, pp. 23, 55, pl. 51) under the title Umi no sachi (Boon of the seas): A haiku anthology on fishes and shellfishes (but also including a squid, a jellyfish, an octopus, sea cucumbers, and several turtles) illustrated by Katsuma Ryûsui (1711-1796); two volumes in one, 1762; block printed in color, with powdered mica to give sheen to the fishes.]

15 We have consulted several of these [manuscript] collections of paintings, among them a very handsome one in the library of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, which Lacepède also used; it contains fifty-four sheets in transverse folio, superbly drawn. Dussumier [see chap. 16, note 49] recently lent us another collection that contains twenty-four even more careful drawings. The duke of Rivoli possesses a superb manuscript, brought back from Japan by the late [Isaac] Titsingh [1744-1812], in which the Japanese names are added in European transliteration; he was kind enough to show us this volume, which contains drawings of thirty-one fishes. [The Lacepède manuscript cannot now be identified (although there is some evidence that it is MS 2321: “Collection of fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans, engraved and illuminated in Japan, with their Chinese and Japanese names, and the French names added in pencil by Cuvier,” two volumes of fifty-seven double folio sheets bound in one, measuring 290 x 200 mm; see Boinet (Amédée) (ed.), Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 2: Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, École des Mines, École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, École Polytechnique, Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1914, p. 81) but the Dussumier and Titsingh collections are still present in the collections of the Bibliothèque Centrale du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. The Dussumier manuscript (MS 5037), titled “Twenty-four fishes painted at Canton. Monsieur J. J. Dussumier,” is actually a collection of twenty-four folio pages (measuring 435 x 540 mm) containing illustrations of twenty-five fishes, thirteen of which are identified with reference to the text of the Histoire naturelle des poissons. The Titsingh manuscript (MS 396), titled “Poissons du Japon,” is an oblong volume of twenty-three folio sheets (measuring 415 x 280 mm) bearing, in addition to fishes, illustrations of crustaceans, sea cucumbers, and turtles (see Boinet (Amédée) (ed.), Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 2: Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, École des Mines, École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, École Polytechnique, Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1914, p. 83).]

16 Engelbert Kaempfer was born at Lemgo, in the principality of Lippe, in 1651. He traveled to Persia in 1684, embarked in 1688 with a Dutch fleet, which was sailing in the Persian Gulf, arrived in 1689 at Batavia, and from there went to Japan. He left Japan about the end of 1691, returned to Europe two years later, and died in 1716, physician to the count of Lippe. He published in 1712 his Amoenitatum exoticarum, in five books, and left a manuscript in German titled “Ecclesiastical and Secular Natural History of Japan,” which was later acquired by Hans Sloane, translated into English by [Johann Gaspar] Scheuchzer [1702-1729], and printed in London in 1727. There is a French translation produced at The Hague, 1729, two volumes in folio [and one in Dutch published at Amsterdam, 1733, one volume in folio]. Plates 11-14 show aquatic animals, among which are twelve species of fishes.

17 Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, a Jesuit, born at Saint-Quentin in 1682, died at La Flèche in 1761. In his Histoire du Japon, Paris, 1736, two volumes in quarto, he copies Kaempfer but does not name him except when he refutes him. He places the article on fishes in a supplement at the end of the second volume. [On Charlevoix, 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. 503-504.]

18 Charles Plumier, born at Marseilles in 1646, entered the order of the Minims [a Catholic monastic order founded in Italy in 1435 by Saint Francis of Paula; see Whitmore (Patrick James Stigant), The order of Minims in seventeenth-century France, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, ix + 367 p.] in 1662, taught by Boccone [see chap. 5, note 20] in Italy, friend of Tournefort [see note 27 below] and [Pierre Joseph] Garidel [1658-1737], made his first voyage to Martinique and neighboring islands, and even the continent [but see below], in 1687-1688, and returned there twice again with government missions [on the dates of Plumier’s three voyages to the Antilles, see Hrodej (Philippe), “Saint Domingue en 1690. Les observations du père Plumier, botaniste provençal,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, vol. 84, no. 317, 4e trimestre 1997, pp. 93-117]. He died in 1704 at the port of Santa Maria near Cadiz when he was preparing to depart for Peru. [For more on the life of Plumier, see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, 408 p. (Des planches et des mots; 6).] [The localities in the New World visited by Plumier are provided in detail by Urban (Urban (Ignaz), Plumiers Leben und Schriften nebst einem Schlüssel zu seinen Blütenpflanzen, Berlin: Hrsg. von Friedrich Fedde, 1920, p. 5). Some accounts (e.g., Duvau (Auguste), “Plumier,” in Michaud (Louis-Gabriel) (ed.), Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, ou Histoire, par ordre alphabétique, de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes qui se sont fait remarquer par leurs écrits, leurs actions, leurs talents, leurs vertus ou leurs crimes, Paris: Michaud, 1823, vol. 35, p. 94) claim that Plumier collected plants on the North American continent, but Urban (Urban (Ignaz), Plumiers Leben und Schriften nebst einem Schlüssel zu seinen Blütenpflanzen, Berlin: Hrsg. von Friedrich Fedde, 1920, p. 5; see also Fournier (Paul), “Aux Antilles, Charles Plumier, Minime,” in Fournier (Paul) (ed.), Contribution à l’histoire des sciences naturelle. Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionnaires naturalistes français à travers le monde pendant cinq siècles xve à xxe siècles, Paris: Lechevalier, 1932, p. 54) adamantly denies this possibility: “Das amerikanische Festland ist von Plumier nicht berührt worden. Alle Identifizierungen seiner Tafeln mit Arten, die nur auf dem Kontinente vorkommen, sind deshalb irrig.”] In addition to his Description des plantes de l’Amérique (Paris, 1693, in folio), his Nova plantarum Americanarum genera (Paris, 1703, in quarto), his Traité des fougères de l’Amérique (Paris, 1705, in folio), and the fascicles published by [Johannes] Burmann [professor of botany at the Athenaeum Illustre and at the Amsterdam Medical Garden, 1707-1780] at Amsterdam (1755-1760), Plumier left a large quantity of manuscripts, which had remained in the library of the Minims in the Place Royale, Paris, and are now deposited in the king’s library and the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. An account of them was published by [Auguste] Duvau [1771-1831], Biographie Universelle, vol. 35 [1823]. [For more on Plumier, see Urban (Ignaz), Plumiers Leben und Schriften nebst einem Schlüssel zu seinen Blütenpflanzen, Berlin: Hrsg. von Friedrich Fedde, 1920, 196 p., in-8°; Fournier (Paul), “Aux Antilles, Charles Plumier, Minime,” in Fournier (Paul) (ed.), Contribution à l’histoire des sciences naturelle. Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionnaires naturalistes français à travers le monde pendant cinq siècles xve à xxe siècles, Paris: Lechevalier, 1932, pp. 53-59; Whitmore (Patrick James Stigant), The order of Minims in seventeenth-century France, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, ix + 367 p.; and Pietsch (Theodore W.), “Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and his drawings of French and American fishes,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1-57; “Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and his drawings of French and American fishes: concordance with equivalent illustrations found in the vellums of Aubriet and published works of Gautier d’Agoty, Bloch, Lacepède, Bloch and Schneider, and Cuvier and Valenciennes,” Archives of Natural History, vol. 28, no. 2, 2001, pp. 261-268; “Plumier’s Passion: Foregoing the Smallest of Worldly Pleasures, A Seventeenth-century French Monk Compiled a Meticulous Record of Plants and Animals. His Illustrations of Fishes Are Just One of His Neglected Legacies,” Natural History, vol. 119, no. 7, 2011, pp. 30-36; Charles Plumier (1646- 1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, 408 p. (Des planches et des mots; 6).]

19 The drawings of fishes are now in the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, bound in three volumes of different sizes, one titled “Poissons, oiseaux, lezards, serpens et insectes” [MS 24], which contains 157 illustrations of fishes; the second, “Poissons d’Amerique” [MS 25], contains 100; and the third, “Poissons et coquilles” [MS 31], has 80 [For a full complilation, see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, 408 p. (Des planches et des mots; 6).] But several figures are repeated, and many fishes are [not from America at all but] from our own waters in France. One may still see in most of them the pinholes used for pouncing the drawings, probably for the copy that was used by Bloch [in the preparation of his great works on fishes; see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, op. cit., pp. 65-67, 104-109].

20 It is worth noting the contemptuous tone Labat [see note 3 above] uses in speaking of a man [Plumier] who was in every regard much superior to himself (e.g., in his Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amérique and elsewhere): [ “I hardly know any man easier to deceive than that good priest. He had a marvelous talent for drawing plants and he was able to produce excellent works of that sort, if he was cloistered, but because he desired to come out of the cloister, he fell into an infinity of blunders, of which the one I mention here is not even one of the most considerable” (Labat (Jean Baptiste), Nouveau Voyage aux isles de l’Amérique, contenant l’histoire naturelle de ces pays, l’origine, les mœurs, la religion et le gouvernement des habitans anciens et modernes, Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1722, vol. 1, pp. 287-288)].

21 [Antoine Laurent] de Jussieu [1748-1836] assured me that the monks [at the convent of the Minims at the Place Royale in Paris] used them as stools for seating themselves near the fire.

22 Louis Feuillée [a monk of the order] of the Minims [see Whitmore (Patrick James Stigant), The order of Minims in seventeenth-century France, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, ix + 367 p.], was born at Mane near Forcalquier in 1660. He traveled as an astronomer to the Levant in 1699, to the Antilles and New Spain in 1703, to Peru and Chile, 1708-1711, and died in 1732. In his Journal des observations physiques mathématiques et botaniques, Paris, 1714, two volumes in quarto, and the remainder in a third volume published in 1728, he included many things pillaged from the papers of Plumier, his confrere, but he took only a few articles on fishes.

23 Jacques Gautier d’Agoty [born in Marseilles in 1716, died at Paris in 1785], painter, [engraver, physician, anatomist], and author of numerous works embellished with color plates that were executed by a process of his own. He included several drawings by Plumier in his Observations sur l’histoire naturelle, sur la physique et sur la peinture, 1752-1755, six volumes. Many more are reproduced in a continuation of this series produced by his son [Arnaud Eloy Gautier D’Agoty, died 1771], with the help of [François-Vincent] Toussaint: two volumes, 1756-1757 [each with a slightly different title]. Observations sur la Physique [called the Journal de Physique after 1794] by [l’Abbé] Rozier, [J.A. Mongez], and [Jean Claude de] La Métherie is itself a continuation of the former. [For more on d’Agoty, see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, pp. 80, 82, 118, 120.]

24 Bloch gives an account of this manuscript in the preface to the third part of his great Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische [Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, und in Commission in der Buchhandlung der Realschule, 1785-1795, vol. 3, pp. iii-viii]. It seems that it was prepared by Plumier [see note 18 above] himself in the hope of having it printed in Holland. A Frenchman in the service of Prussia took it to Berlin, where it was sold at auction. Its title was Zoographia Americana, pisces et volatilia continens, auctore R. P. C. Plumier. It was composed of 169 pages in folio but contained more than just fishes, so that Bloch took from it only thirty-four illustrations for his work; three more were used by Schneider in Bloch’s posthumous work, the Systems ichthyologiae [see 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°]. It is not known what happened to it at the sale of Bloch’s books [see Karrer (Christine), “Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723- 1799), sein Leben und die Geschichte seiner Fischsammlung,” Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, new series, vol. 18, 1978, pp. 129-149, 185-188; Wells (Ellen B.), “M.E. Bloch’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische: A study,” in Wheeler (Alwyne C.) & Price (James H.) (eds), History in the service of systematics: papers from the conference to celebrate the centenary of the British Museum (Natural History) 13-16 April, 1981, London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1981, p. 8; and Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, pp. 57, 95].

25 For example, Bloch [Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, und in Commission in der Buchhandlung der Realschule, 1785-1795, vol. 2, p. 146, pl. 175] deliberately changed the shape of the head of the fish called “vive” on Martinique, which is a tilefish of the genus Malacanthus (malacanthe), in order to make it look like a dolphinfish (coryphène); he called it Coryphaena plumieri (see 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, pp. 298-299). Lacepède ((Bernard Germain Étienne), Histoire naturelle des poissons, Paris: Plassan, 1798-1803, vol. 4, p. 427, pl. 8, fig. 1) reproduced the drawing more accurately, almost as it appears in Plumier’s manuscript but, on Bloch’s authority, still left it among the dolphinfishes (coryphènes). [See Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, pp. 84, 122, pl. 5.]

26 [Claude Aubriet, born at Chalons-sur-Marne in about 1665, became painter to the king, the king’s cabinet, and the king’s garden in 1700; later (1706-1735) he held the appointment of painter of miniatures to the king (see note 28 below). He died at Paris in December 1742.]

27 [Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, the celebrated French botanist, professor of botany at the Jardin du Roi, 1656-1708.]

28 It appears that Aubriet [see note 26 above], who was paid by the page to continue the great collection —begun in 1640 for Gaston d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, and now deposited at the [Bibliothèque Centrale du] Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris [see Laissus (Yves), Les Vélins du Muséum: conférence donnée au Palais de la Découverte le 7 janvier 1967, Paris: [Palais de la Découverte], 1967, 28 p.]— took originals wherever he could. It appears also that he knew of Plumier’s drawings, but he painted his copies according to the descriptions only, or even according to his imagination. There is nothing to prove that he worked under the supervision of the original author. Lacepède had thirty-seven of these drawings by Aubriet engraved [for use in his Histoire naturelle des poissons, 1798-1803; see Pietsch (Theodore W.), Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2017, pp. 79-80, 117- 118].

29 For example, Harpe bleu-doré [Harpe caeruleo-aureus] of Lacepède [Lacepède (Bernard Germain Étienne), Histoire naturelle des poissons, Paris: Plassan, 1798-1803, vol. 4, p. 427], pl. 8, fig. 2, is the same as Bloch’s [Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, und in Commission in der Buchhandlung der Realschule, 1785-1795, vol. 5, p. 20], pl. 258, Sparus falcatus; [Lacepède (Bernard Germain Étienne), Histoire naturelle des poissons, Paris: Plassan, 1798-1803, vol. 3, p. 542], pl. 33, fig. 1, Cheilodiptere chrysoptere [Cheilodipterus chrysopterus] is the same as Bloch’s [Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, und in Commission in der Buchhandlung der Realschule, 1785- 1795, vol. 6, p. 66, pl. 306], Sciaena plumieri, and so on.

Table des illustrations

Légende TriggerfishesIllustration from “Zee-Tooneel,” a collection of colored drawings made by Isaäc Johannes Lamotius (1646-1718), attributed erroneously by Cuvier to Cornelis de Vlamingh (1678-1735). Bibliothèque centrale, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Manuscript 339, pl. 74.Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6344/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 113k
Légende Fishes from Ambon IslandOne of twenty plates that illustrate “Collectio nova piscium Amboinensium,” in Hendrik Ruysch’s 1718 edition of Joannes Jonstonus’s Historia naturalis, vol. 1, part 1, plate 5.Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6344/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 137k
Légende Ican TomtomboA boxfish, Tetrosomus gibbosus. From “Collectio nova piscium Amboinensium,” in Hendrik Ruysch’s 1718 edition of Joannes Jonstonus’s Historia naturalis, vol. 1, part 1, plate 5.Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6344/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 47k
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6344/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 50k
Légende Plumier’s fishesTwo examples of drawings of fishes, “remarkable for their detail and accuracy” by father Plumier. Bibliothèque centrale, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, manuscript 31, folio 7 and manuscript 25, folio 58.Clichés Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6344/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 170k

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