Presented here are the plates and their attendant explications, and the text entire in two volumes, from the Traité Général des Pesches, et histoire des Poissons qu'elles fournissent, tant pour la subsistance des hommes, que pour plusieurs autres usages qui ont rapport aux arts et au commerce, written during the years 1769-1782 by Duhamel du Monceau and Jean-Louis De La Marre. Considered one of the finest extant works on fishing and fisheries, the plates show both fresh and salt water fishes, fishing boats, fishing equipment and fishers. While the text covers mainly France there are also descriptions of areas of economic importance such as the Grand Banks.

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1782) was a proponent of the French Enlightenment and wrote a large number of books on topics of scientific and economic interest. At the request of the French Academy of Sciences he discovered that saffron plants in the former central French province of Gâtinais were being infected with a parasitic root fungus which led to his election to the French Academy of Sciences in 1728. He was subsequently appointed to the position of Inspecteur Général de la Marine in 1732. In 1761 he founded l’École du Génie Maritime, a school for maritime engineers. Throughout his life he continued to write on such diverse topics as naval architecture, botany, rope making and meteorology among many others.