Author: Cuvier, G. [L. C. F. D.]
Title: Sur les poissons du sous-genre Hydrocyn, sur deux nouvelles espèces de Chalceus, sur trois nouvelles espèces de Serrasalmes, et sur l'Argentina glossodonta de Forskahl, qui est l'Albula gonorhynchus de Bloch.
Description: Paris, Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, 1819. 4to (31.1 x 22.2 cm). 29 pp. [351-379]; three engraved plates [numbered 26-28]. Disbound. = A seldom-seen paper of taxonomical importance by the great French zoologist and anatomist Georges [Jean] Léopold Dagobert Cuvier (1769-1832), which lays the foundation for comparative zoology and phylogeny. Cuvier "laid the foundations of comparative anatomy. ... It is in his classification of the animal kingdom into four main groups, Vertebrata, Mollusca, Articulata and Radiata, that he so notably succeeded in giving a lead that has been followed by all his successors. In contradiction to the current view that the structure of an animal determined its functions and habits Cuvier held that an animal's structure was due to its functions and habits. ... He also saw that ... homogeneity in an individual should enable a competent naturalist to reconstruct a complete animal from any significant part of its anatomy" (PMM). Published in the fifth volume of the Muséum's Mémoires. Uncut, with the widest possible margins. Some, mostly marginal spotting, otherwise very good, complete. Dean I, p. 286.

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