British Association. 198 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. MEETING 



HELD AT CAMBRIDGE. 



Section of Zoology and Botany. 



June 19, 1845. — The Rev. Professor Henslow in the Chair. 



The following are abstracts of the principal communications laid 

 before the Section. 



The first paper read was a Report by Dr. Richardson ** On the 

 Ichthyology of China." 



Till within a recent period little was known of Chinese fishes. 

 Linnaeus was acquainted with about a score of Japanese fish ; and a 

 few were afterwards added to the list by LangsdorfF, who accompa- 

 nied the Russian admiral, Knesenstiern, in his voyage to the Isles of 

 Japan and the South Sea. With these exceptions, the fish of the 

 eastern coasts of Asia, from the sea of Ochotsic down to Cochin 

 China, were till very recently known to European naturalists only from 

 Chinese and Japanese drawings, several collections of which are to 

 be found in the Paris and British libraries. Yet the fish of the coasts 

 of China are abundant, and the fisheries extensive and important. 

 Materials for the description of these fishes were not wanting. Mr. 

 John Reeves had beautiful coloured drawings, mostly of the size of 

 life, made of no fewer than 340 species of fish which are brought to 

 the markets in Canton. Copies of these drawings now exist in the 

 British Museum. Some fishes have been recently sent from Chusan ; 

 other Chinese fishes have been described in the account of the voyage 

 of the Sulphur. A collection of 100 fishes made at Canton exists in 

 the museum of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge. From these 

 and other recent sources the present report was drawn up. The 

 author concluded from his researches, that the existence of chains of 

 islands or of continuous coast having ah east and west tendency pro- 

 motes the range of a species or of a group of species. Thus, to take 

 the intertropical zone of the ocean, we find very many fish common 

 to the Red Sea, the coasts of Madagascar, the Mauritius, the Indian 

 Ocean, the southern parts of China, the Philippines, the whole Ma- 

 lay Archij)elago, the north coasts of Australia, and the entire range 

 of Polynesia, including the Sandwich Islands. In the generic forms 

 of its freshwater fish, China agrees closely with the peninsula of 

 India. If we could suppose the extensive belt above alluded to, 

 enclosing more than two- thirds of the circumference of the globe, to 

 be suddenly elevated, we should find the remains of fish scattered 

 over it to be everywhere very nearly alike ; the species having a local 

 distribution being comparatively few and unimportant. These spoils 

 of fish would of course, in accordance with the observation of Prof. 

 E. Forbes, be associated with very various assemblages of moUusks 

 and other marine animals, according to the depth at which the de- 

 posit took place. This, waa an important &ct lor ttiQ s^a;^ftQp i^f 



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