112 Mr. J. McClelland on Indian Cyprinidae. 



some and nutritious food, and otherwise contributing to the 

 ease and support of man, are, according to Swainson, the chief 

 attributes of the type to which the above analogy refers. 



30. The Elephant, horned cattle, domestic poultry, &c, 

 are common instances of the type alluded to ; and if we com- 

 pare their properties in their respective circles with the Cy- 

 prinidce in the order of abdominal Malacopterygians, we may 

 venture perhaps to look upon that family as the equivalent 

 in its circle to other rasorial groups in theirs. 



31. The mouth of Cyp.Calbasus,Buch., is small,and directed 

 downwards ; the anterior lip is compressed by a pendulous 

 muscular snout, to which four short muscular cirri, different 

 from the nervous filaments of Siluridte, are attached*, and the 

 posterior lip is fixed to the ligamentous union of the trans- 

 verse apophyses of the lower jaw. In the Cirrhins the lower 

 jaw is composed of two short branches or bony limbs, ob- 

 liquely inclined towards each other from their articulation to 

 the blunt apex of the jaw, where they are united by ligaments 

 instead of symphysis at the approximation of a slender apo- 

 physis from each side. Figs. 4, 5, 20, 21, plate 54, show the 

 under side of the right ramus of the lower jaw (natural size) 

 of four species ; a, being the point of approximation with its 

 fellow at the chin, and b, the articulating extremity behind. 



32. This structure is evidently adapted to the habit of col- 

 lecting fruits, seeds, and other soft substances from the muddy 

 and sandy bottoms of indolent streams, in which loose de- 

 tached objects of the kind are most likely to occur, and where 

 they may be easily collected, without bodily effort, by means 

 of these soft pendulous and prehensile organs attached to the 

 lips. If to these characters we add the great size of the spe- 

 cies compared with the rest of the family, and the plain dusky 

 colour of the Cirrhins, their analogy to the proboscidian 

 types of quadrupeds seems almost complete. But there are 

 still other remarkable points of resemblance between the 

 Cirrhins and rasorial forms among the quadrupeds, in the de- 

 ficiency of teeth, and the weakness of the union of the two 

 limbs of the lower jaw. 



33. In the Elephant this jaw is only formed for grinding such 

 substances as are introduced to the mouth by the proboscis ; 



* The cirri of Cyprinidce are soft, and capable of being contracted and 

 elongated, as well as the loose muscular appendages of the snout to which 

 they are attached, particularly in the genus Cirrhinus i Cuv. ; but in Pime- 

 lodus aor, Buch., and most of the Siluridce, I find the cirri are flat and car- 

 tilaginous, with a groove on either edge for the protection of a large nerve, 

 an artery, and a vein. A cirrus so constructed is incapable of muscular ac- 

 tion, and is strictly an organ of sense only, and not of prehension as in Cy- 

 prinidce, and ought to be called a filament. 



