The traditional view of London's Royal Society as a closed circle has been subject to revision in the past decades. Historians have shown the considerable extent to which the Fellows of the Society drew on a broad range of men of practice for their respective skill sets. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the contributions of fishermen and fishmongers to the creation of natural knowledge. It centres on the Historia piscium (Oxford, 1686), written by Francis Willughby and John Ray, and its surrounding sources. This natural history of fishes aspired to give a concise and precise overview of species, and to uncover the divine order in which they were created. While men of practice contributed to this project in multiple ways, their first-hand observations carried particular weight. Through their cumulative experience of working with fish they saw a great number of living species, rather than the dried exemplars that naturalists would usually consult in cabinets of curiosities, or the indirect evidence that images might present. This article examines what kind of exchanges took place between fishermen and fishmongers on the one hand and Fellows on the other, and where, how and why these were incorporated into the fish book. In so doing, it also aims to qualify the value attached to direct (natural historical) observation in the socio-cultural context of late seventeenth-century England.

在过去的几十年里，伦敦皇家学会作为一个封闭圈的传统观点已经受到修正。历史学家已经表明，该协会的研究员在很大程度上利用了广泛的实践者来获得他们各自的技能。本文深入分析了渔民和鱼贩对创造自然知识的贡献。它以Historia piscium 为中心（牛津，1686 年），由 Francis Willughby 和 John Ray 及其周边资料撰写。这部鱼类的自然史渴望对物种进行简明而准确的概述，并揭示它们被创造出来的神圣秩序。虽然实践者以多种方式为这个项目做出了贡献，但他们的第一手观察具有特别重要的意义。通过他们与鱼类工作的累积经验，他们看到了大量的活物种，而不是博物学家通常会在好奇心柜中查阅的枯燥的样本，或者图像可能呈现的间接证据。本文考察了渔民和鱼贩之间发生了什么样的交流，另一方面，研究员之间发生了什么样的交流，以及这些交流在何处、如何以及为什么被纳入鱼书中。这样做时，