136 BULLETIN 188, UNITED STATES NATIONAL mUSEUM 



meters long, and there are other definite records of examples of this 

 size. Fish up to 3 meters have undoubtedly been caught in the Menam 

 Chao Phya in earlier years. A dried head, 42 cm. long, in the collec- 

 tion of the Siamese Bureau of Fisheries was from a specimen taken 

 at Paknam, August 24, 1924. A scale from the side of this fish was 

 6.8 cm. long and 5.7 cm. wide; a scale from the back near the head 

 was 8.5 cm. long and 8 cm. wide. 



By some people the flesh of this fish is considered fairly good to eat 

 and by others it is first pickled. Examples in most demand in 

 the markets are those 1 or 2 feet long. On the roof of the mouth 

 just in front of the esophagus there is a large mass of adenoid tissue, 

 and one of the earlier Siamese kings was very fond of this sub- 

 stance as a food morsel. 



Some idea of the abundance of the fish at times may be gathered 

 from the fact that at one stall in one Bangkok market on December 

 10, 1926, 50 fish about 20 cm. long were on sale, and in one Bangkok 

 market on November 5, 1929, over 200 fishes, the largest 22 cm. long, 

 were on display. These fishes in both instances had come from nets 

 in the river below Bangkok and were the young of the year. 



Anglers seek large examples of this fish in the Bangkok region, 

 using a ball of cooked rice as bait. If very large fishes are hooked, 

 the fishermen allow their boats to be dragged around until the fishes 

 are tired out, which may take several hours, as the fishes are strong 

 and hardy. 



All the earlier references to this fish, following Boulenger's original 

 description, were under the name Catla catla (Hamilton) . This error 

 was due to the extraordinary superficial resemblance of C atlocarpio 

 and Catla, more especially in the enormous head, which exceeds half 

 the length of the body. Catla inhabits India and Burma and has not 

 been found in Thailand but may be looked for in the Salwin Basin, 

 from which C atlocarpio has not been reported. C atlocarpio is known 

 from Indo-China but it is called Catla in the iclithyological literature 

 of that country. A mounted specimen about a meter long, presumably 

 from the Mekong or the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, exhibited in the 

 Economic Museum in Pnom-Penh, Cambodia, is a C atlocarpio but is 

 labeled Catla. 



Among the outstanding differences between C atlocarpio and Catla 

 are: The former has 14 to 16 branched dorsal rays, the latter only 

 9 ; and the former 4 pharyngeal teeth in one row on each side, the latter 

 10 teeth arranged in three rows on each side. Other characters of 

 Catlocarpio are a very broad dermal fold bordering the gill cover, 

 numerous gill rakers (110 on the first arch), eyes invisible from above, 

 mouth extending as far back as eye, lower lip thick and with the 

 postlabial groove interrupted medianly, absence of barbels, and com- 

 plete lateral line with 39 to 40 scales. 



