A CUBAN FISHERMAN.

"AH, but you must see Don Felipe, — he knows

all about fishes!" is the first advice which the naturalist receives when he begins to make collections of fishes in the markets of Havana. The writer once had occasion to make such a collection, and he soon found that among fishermen and fishmongers the phrase "amigo de Don Felipe" was ever a passport to honest dealing and to a real desire to aid him in his work. For every fisherman in Havana knows Don Felipe, and looks upon him as a personal friend. Each one regards the fame which Don Felipe's studies of the fishes is vaguely understood to have brought him in that little-known world outside of Havana as in some sort reflected on himself. The writer was told, by a dealer in the Pescadería Grande, that for twenty years Don Felipe Poey was there in the markets every day, when at noon the fishes came in from the boats, and that he knew more about the fishes of Cuba than even the fishermen themselves. And now that Don Felipe no longer visits the markets, he is not forgotten there, and many a rare specimen still finds its way from the Pescadería to Don Felipe's study in the Calle San Nicolas.

Felipe Poey y Aloy was born in Havana, May 26, 1799. His father was French, his mother Spanish; but Poey early renounced his French citizenship for that of Cuba. His education was received in Havana, and after studying law he became, in 1823, an advocate in that city. But his tastes lay in the direction of natural history, and for this he gradually abandoned his practice as a lawyer. Very early he had made discoveries of mollusks, insects, and especially of fishes, which were new to science. In 1825 he was married to Maria de Jésus Aguirre, a very intelligent lady who is still the companion of his studies. In 1826 he sailed for Paris, taking with him eighty-five drawings of Cuban fishes and a collection of thirty-five species, preserved in a barrel of brandy. These drawings and specimens he placed at the service of Cuvier and Valenciennes, who were then beginning the publication of their work on the "Natural History of the Fishes." The notes and drawings of Poey proved of much service to the great ichthyologists. A few new species were based on them, and Poey had the satisfaction of finding his own name and observations cited by Cuvier and Valenciennes even more frequently than those of his famous predecessor, Don Antonio Parra,1 who had published, in 1787, the first account of the Fishes of Cuba.2 A set of duplicates of these notes and drawings is still retained by Professor Poey. While

1 Y tuve el honor de ser citado por él (Cuvier) y por su colaborador Valenciennes, más frecuentemente que D. Antonio Parra.

POEY.

2 Diferentes Piezas de Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba.

in Paris, Poey was one of the original members who founded the Entomological Society of France.

On returning to Havana in 1833, Poey gave himself still more fully to the study of natural history, and greater practice gave to his drawings and notes more exactness and value. With the appearance of the successive volumes of the "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," he attempted to identify the fishes of his market, as well as to study their osteology and general anatomy. Animals other than fishes he also tried to study, but in most groups he found the literature in so scattered and unsatisfactory a condition that he rarely ventured to publish the results of his observations. Among the fishes, however, thanks to the general work of Cuvier and Valenciennes, and later to that of Dr. Günther, he felt comparatively sure of his results, and ventured to name as new those which he could not identify. The land-snails of Cuba, too, Poey and his associate, Dr. Juan Gundlach, were able to identify and describe with certainty, as all the species then known were included in the "Monographium Heliceorum Viventium" of Dr.. Ludwig Pfeiffer.

In the year 1842 Poey was appointed to the professorship of Comparative Anatomy and Zoölogy in the Royal University of Havana, which chair he still holds, after forty-five years. The University of Havana occupies an ancient monastery building in the heart of the city. Like most such edifices in Cuba and Spain, it is a low building around a paved court, and its whitewashed, time-stained walls have an air of great antiquity. The univer

sity has now some twelve hundred students, the great majority of whom are in those departments which lead toward wealth, or social or political preferment, as law, medicine, and pharmacy. Comparatively few pursue literary or philosophical studies, and still fewer are interested in the biological sciences. In the department of botany there are now but two students, and the number in zoology is probably not much greater.

Although Professor Poey is evidently held in very high respect in the university, in which he has long been dean of the faculty of science, I cannot imagine that he ever received much help or sympathy in his scientific work from that quarter, or indeed from any other in Cuba. His friends. and countrymen are doubtless glad to be of assistance to so amiable a gentleman as the Señor Don Felipe, but they have very little intelligent sympathy for the claims of science. The university library contains but little which could be of help in Professor Poey's zoological studies. He has therefore been compelled to gather a private library of ichthyology. This library has with time become very rich and valuable, many of his co-workers in the study of fishes, notably Dr. Bleeker, having presented him with complete series of their published works. Two of Poey's daughters who still reside with him in Havana have been of much help to him in the preparation of drawings and manuscripts.

The museum of the university occupies two little rooms, the one devoted chiefly to Cuban minerals; the other containing mostly mammals, birds, and

fishes mounted by Poey himself in the earlier days of his professorship. The number of these is not great, nor have many additions been made during the last twenty years. Most of the types of the new species described by Professor Poey have been, after being fully studied by him and represented in life-size drawings, sent to the United States National Museum, to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, or to the Museum at Madrid. Duplicates have been rarely retained in Havana, the cost of keeping up a permanent collection being too great. As a result, Professor Poey's work has suffered from lack of means of comparing specimens taken at different times. There is no zoölogical laboratory in Cuba except the private study of Professor Poey; and here, for want of room and for other reasons, drawings have, to a great extent, taken the place of specimens.

The publication of the observations of Professor Poey on the animals of Cuba was begun in 1851, in a series of papers entitled "Memorias sobre la Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba." These papers were issued at intervals from 1851 to 1860, and together form two octavo volumes of about 450 pages each. The first volume contains chiefly descriptions of mollusks and insects. The second volume is devoted mainly to the fishes. As is natural in the exploration of a new field, these volumes are largely occupied with the description of new species. They give evidence of the disadvantages arising from solitary work, without the aid of the association and criticism of others, and without the broader knowledge of the relations of groups which