Mr. McClelland on Isinglass in Polyiiemus sele. 401 



In a paper which I had the honour of communicating to the Royal 

 Asiatic Society*, the genus Polynemus, among others, was pointed out 

 by me as forming an article of food fit for curing, and easily procurable 

 in almost any quantity : by the discovery that it produces isinglass, 

 it has attained an additional interest ; and I have no doubt the ma- 

 nufacture of this article will, when entrusted to judicious hands, 

 form another valuable article of exportation from India. 



L. — On Isinglass in Polynemus sele, Bach., a species which 

 is very common in the Estuaries of the Ganges. By 

 J. McClelland, Esq., Assistant Surgeonf. 



There are nine species of Polynemi, or Paradise fishes, enumerated 

 by authors, and although they are all pretty well described, I am not 

 aware of any more valuable property being known regarding them 

 than their excellence as an article of food, of which we have a fa- 

 miliar instance at this season in the Pol. paradiseus, or Mango-fish, 

 Tupsi Muchi of the Bengalese. 



Buchanan has five species in his work on Gangetic Fishes, but 

 three of these are small, and probably varieties only of the Tupsi ; 

 two of them, however, are of great size, and so common in the es- 

 tuary of the Hoogly, that I have seen numerous hackeries, or bullock 

 carts, conveying them to the Calcutta bazar, during the cold season. 

 They are not confined to the estuary of the Hoogly, but probably 

 extend to all the estuaries of the Ganges, as Buchanan says they do; 

 and we know that Dr. Paissell also describes two large species in his 

 work, long since published, on the fishes of the Madras Coast. 



The very valuable production, Isinglass, having been recently 

 found to be yielded by one of the fishes of the Hoogly by a writer 

 in Parbury's Oriental Herald, it became an interesting object to 

 determine the systematic name of the fish affording an article so 

 valuable, and to learn as much as possible regarding its habits. 

 Having procured a specimen of this fish from the bazar, I was sur- 

 prised to find it to be a Polynemus, or Paradise fish, although the 

 writer alluded to described it as resembling a Shark. My surprise 

 was not that a person unacquainted with fishes should compare it to 

 a Shark, or to anything else, but that a nearly allied species to the 

 Mango-fish should contain a natatory vessel of such size and value, 



* Published in the Journal of the Royal Asiastic Society of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, No. ix., August 1838, p. 165. 



f From the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. 87, p. 203. 



