Colour Illustrations
Atlantic Salmon
This Atlantic salmon is nearly ready to leave its natal river for the ocean.
Becker
This plate depicts a colourful fish against a black and white landscape.
Black-Mouthed Dogfish
The dogfish, a type of shark, is commonly dissected in school anatomy labs. I dissected a dogfish in high school.
Blue Shark
The blue shark is a voracious predator of the open ocean.
Bordered Ray
Unlike most plates in Couch's British Fishes, this plate depicts both the top and bottom of its subject.
Bubalis
Many of the plates in this series feature a fish set against detailed sea-side scenes. This example depicts a fishing wharf.
Carp
Although the common carp has its native roots in Asia, it is now introduced into most areas of the world. Despite being considered a nuisance fish in North America, the common carp provides one of the few sport fishing opportunities in many polluted urban lakes and rivers.
Carp
This attractive plate is the frontis to the final volume of Couch's British Fishes. The carp is a culturally important fish in many regions and is featured in several of the books in this exhibition.
Cod
As many in Canada know, the cod is an economically and culturally important fish. It is included in several of the books in this exhibition.
Common Trout
Called the "common trout" here, the brown trout has been introduced from Europe throughout the world. In fact, the brown trout is one of my study species in my PhD research.
Coregonus Embryology
This leaf is from a loose portfolio of folio-sized plates that accompany the octavo text. This plate depicts several views of a larval whitefish.
Coregonus Juveniles
This leaf is from a loose portfolio of folio-sized plates that accompany the octavo text. This plate depicts a newly hatched juvenile whitefish.
Eagle Ray
Eagle rays are a group of fish that can reach an impressive 7 m in width.
Father-Lasher
Fish are the most species-rich group of vertebrates, with an estimated 32,000 species. Perhaps as a result of having so many species to name, many fish have rather fanciful names. "Father-lasher" is a perfect example!
Golden and Bronze Carp
Asiatic goldfish have long been feral in Europe. This plate likely depicts two feral goldfish in addition to the common carp.
Golden Tench
The golden tench is an attractive ornamental fish which can also be found in the wild.
Greater Flying Fish
People have long been fascinated with fish that fly. I have yet to see a flying fish, but I hope to some day.
Gurnard
The beautiful fish and bucolic background make this one of my favourite plates.
Hybrids Between American Char and British Char
The American brook trout had not been introduced into England for very many years when this book was published. Thus, it is interesting that this plate already features hybrids between American brook trout and British char. Hybridization between native and introduced fish species is of pressing conservation concern, as the hybrids are often less fecund and less well-adapted than pure, native strains.
Juvenile Salmon
Pictured are three stages of the development in juvenile Atlantic salmon. Note the characteristic vertical bands, called parr marks, on the side of the fish.
Loch Leven Trout
Species of the family Salmonidae (salmon, trout, whitefish, and allies) exhibit a considerable amount of regional variability. In the nineteenth century, it was common to assign each regional variant to its own species. Today, the Loch Leven trout is considered a regional variation of the brown trout.
Miller's Thumb
Couch's British Fishes features plates of 252 fish and descriptions of many more, including small, seemingly inconsequential species. The miller's thumb, a small species of freshwater sculpin, is faithfully reproduced here.
Opah
Opah are large, colourful fish that spend most of their lives in the open ocean.
Perch
In addition to being a real beauty, the perch is an important food and game fish in both North America and Europe. It is thus not surprising that this plate serves as the frontis in the first volume of Houghton's British Freshwater Fishes.
Perch
The perch is one of my favourite fish. It is beautifully coloured and easy to catch.
Pike
The pike is one of the top game fish in both North America and Eurasia. It is renowned, and often mythologized, for its voracious appetite and savage predatory instincts.
Red Mullet
This plate features a colourful fish against a black and white landscape.
Salmo Ferox
Salmo ferox is no longer considered to be a valid species. However, the term "ferox," coming from the Latin for fierce, is still applied to exceptionally large brown trout. The chromolithographs from this book are rather crudely done. Compared to the fine lithographs from Houghton's British Freshwater Fishes, those in Day's book appear stiff and somewhat comical.
Sewen
"Sewen" is a Welsh term for sea-run brown trout.
Sharp-Nosed Eel and Broad-Nosed Eel
The life history of the European eel was a mystery for centuries and is still not completely understood. Adult eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea, and their young apparently drift the thousands of kilometers back to mainland Europe. American eels also spawn in the Sargasso Sea.
Sheatfish
The sheatfish, also known as the wels catfish, is a freshwater European species that can reach nearly 3 meters in length and 150 kg.
Spinous Shark
This strange-looking shark is a rare deepwater species.
Starry Ray
Unlike many plates from this work, this illustration features the fish only without a landscape in the background.
Sticklebacks
Sticklebacks have long attracted the attention of scientists and naturalists. Their skeletal armour and prickly stickles are used as defense against predators. The males of the species build nests and guard them against intruders with an unexpected degree of vigour given the fish's small size.
Streaked Gurnard
This beautiful fish has large colourful pectoral fins, as pictured in this plate.
Surmullet
Unlike many plates from this work, this illustration features the fish only without a landscape in the background.
Thornback Ray
The thornback ray is also featured in this exhibition in Conrad Gessner's Fischbuch.
Three-Bearded Rockling
This fish gets its name from the three barbels present around its mouth.
Toper and Young
This is one of the few plates in Couch's British Fishes to include both the adult and young of a species. Juvenile and adult fish of the same species often look dramatically different, although these two strike a convincing mother and daughter pair.
Trumpet-Fish
This small, unassuming fish is one of my favourites in the series.
Two Juvenile Salmon
Depicted are two later stages in the development of juvenile Atlantic salmon.
Vendace, Gwyniad, and Grayling
This plate features whitefish and grayling. The gwyniad is a distinct species, existing in a single lake in Wales. The vendace and grayling are widespread throughout Europe.
Yellow Skulfin
This plate features a colourful fish against a black and white landscape.
Laughing Carp
This gorgeous thirteenth-century leaf was once part of a “Laughing Carp” psalter, named for the charming line fillers drawn as fish with various expressions. This manuscript was broken by biblioclast Otto Ege and was included in his Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe, XII-XVI Century (c. 1950). It is not known if this particular leaf is from a copy of Original Leaves that was broken and sold leaf-by-leaf (an ironic possibility) or if it is a leaf from the manuscript that was never included in a copy of Original Leaves.
Laughing Carp Details
This photo provides a close-up of a few of the fish and some of the illumination work in this circa thirteenth-century leaf from the “Laughing Carp” psalter broken and distributed by Otto Ege. This is the oldest item in my collection.
Fish Couture
In cultures around the world, fish play an integral part in daily life as food, objects of study and recreational pursuit, and as characters in stories and parables. Over the last several years, I have built the portion of my collection that documents the social history of fish, including ways that lay people interact with fish in a non-technical way. This print by George Spratt illustrates a woman whose body and clothing comprise different species of fish and other aquatic organisms.
Fish Couture Details
The details here are fantastic. What appears to be a “normal” necklace around the woman’s neck is, in fact, a chain of small fish, and her brown hair is represented by two small flatfish beneath her lobster hat.
Elsje on the Beach
The lovely front wrapper of Elsje bij de Visschen was protected for over 100 years by the custom dust jacket created for the book not long after it was published.
Elsje Becomes a Fish
I enjoy adding these sorts of books to the social history portion of my collection. Many nineteenth-century children’s stories feature fish (or children who transform into fish) that stray from the safety of their homes and parents. Some children, like our Elsje, are able to return home safely after their ill-advised adventures, but others are not so lucky… Cautionary tales such as these were common in the nineteenth century.
Dangers Lurk Behind Elsje
This page shows young Elsje exploring the ocean in her new piscine form, naively unaware of the dangers that await her in the background.
A Colourful Cod
Shaw’s General Zoology was a popular natural history compendium published in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The “Fishes” volumes of Shaw’s Zoology are often found on the market today; however, this is the first (and only!) copy I have seen where all 189 engravings have been professionally hand coloured. This specific plate was chosen to compare with the uncoloured example of the same plate featured in the original exhibition.
Hand-Coloured Title Page
The “Fishes” section of Shaw’s General Zoology includes four volumes, each with an engraved title page adorned with a vignette of a fish in an ocean scene. In my hand-coloured copy of this title, all four vignettes have also been hand coloured.
The Standard-Bearer
This beautiful full-page plate of an Arctic Grayling is the only colour illustration in Richardson’s Notice of the Fishes and is one of my favourite images in my collection.
Two Catfish
Illustrators and printers have struggled with how best to represent the vibrant colours and unusual shapes of fish on the page. The invention of chromolithography presented a new way to print in colour, and this technique was quickly used to print images of fish. Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] was one of the fish books to use chromolithography to show the diversity of beautiful fish.
A Decorative Title Page
The decorative title page of Strack’s work credits “Arnz & Co” as the lithographers.
Fish with Unusual Shapes
This page from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] illustrates three species of fish grouped together because of their unusual body shapes.
Beauties of the Tropics
Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.
Chromolithographing the Tropics
Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.
Lionfish in Colour
Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.
Title Page of Renard's Poissons
Renard’s Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes is one of the most significant books on fish. It is frequently cited as the first book about fish to be issued from the publisher with coloured plates and is well-known among natural history collectors for its scarcity, value, and vibrant—sometimes outlandish—coloured plates. Unfortunately, these same plates make the book exceptionally attractive to biblioclasts, and copies of the book are being broken and sold leaf-by-leaf even today. This title page is from one of two broken copies of Renard’s Poissons that I have purchased from the sellers who were actively breaking the books. I have managed to preserve bindings, some text leaves, and a selection of plates from each of these two formerly complete copies. Although each book represents only a fraction of what it once was, I am happy to have preserved what I could.
A Diversity of Colours
This plate from my fragmentary copy of Renard’s Poissons [1754] illustrates four species of tropical fish from the Indonesian archipelago.
Colours Abound
This plate from my fragmentary copy of Renard’s Poissons [1754] illustrates three species of tropical fish from the Indonesian archipelago.
Engraved, Folding, and Coloured
This large folding engraving of a fish skeleton is partially hand-coloured and is the most impressive plate in Bakker’s Osteographia piscium (1822).
Three Tropical Fish
The plates in Sagra’s Peces [1853] are magnificently coloured, and the fish seem ready to swim off the page. Three species of Cuban fish are illustrated here.
Two Tropical Fish
The plates in Sagra’s Peces [1853] are magnificently coloured, and the fish seem ready to swim off the page. Two species of Cuban fish are illustrated here, including the charismatic Flying Fish.
Big to Small, Shark to Seahorse
The plates in Sagra’s Peces [1853] are magnificently coloured, and the fish seem ready to swim off the page. Three species of Cuban fish are illustrated here, including a large shark and a diminutive seahorse.
A Pumpkinseed Sunfish
This plate from Harris’s The Fishes of North America That Are Captured on Hook and Line (1898) features the Pumpkinseed Sunfish, a fish of personal significance to me. This species was one of the first fish I captured from a local pond and is largely responsible for my lifelong fascination with fish.
The Michigan Grayling
This plate shows the now-extinct Michigan Grayling. This fish was once so abundant in Northern Michigan that a town was renamed “Grayling” in its honour, and a commercial train line specialized in bringing folks “up north” to fish for the Grayling in Michigan streams. Unfortunately, by the 1930s, the Michigan Grayling was extirpated due to overfishing, habitat loss, and the introduction of non-native species. Another title in this exhibition, Hallock’s The Fishing Tourist, first brought the Michigan Grayling to the attention of anglers only 25 years earlier.
A California Fat-Head
Harris’s The Fishes of North America That Are Captured on Hook and Line (1898) was not limited to freshwater fish. This attractive plate illustrates the colourful “California Redfish or Fat-Head,” which was caught and painted off Catalina Island.