Ill 



seas. The Catalogue is designed to meet the wants of students of the Indian 

 fauna, and it would have been superfluous to reprint information that can be 

 found recorded in Day's standard volumes on the Fishes of India. 



I cannot let this volume go out without acknowledging the essential and 

 fundamental obligations that it owes to the Catalogue of the Fishes in the British 

 Museum, to the Introduction to the Study of Fishes, and to the Report on the Beep 

 Sea Fishes collected by H. M. S. Challenger. 



In any scheme of classification the compass and standing of the various 

 units will vary with individual opinion ; but the value and influence of a well- 

 organized system of broad, clear, consistent generalizations must always 

 last, and I am happy to add my tribute of regard to the author of the works 

 in which these qualities are so conspicuously manifest. 



A. Alcock, Major, I. M. S., 



Superintendent of the Indian Museum. 



