MISCELLANEA. 



FLSH. 



Note on a supposed neAV Indian genus. 



Jordan has recently created a new genus Raimas ^ with CyPri- 

 nus &o/a, Hamilton, as its type to take the place of Bola, Giinther. * 

 He thinks Bola to be " preoccupied by Hamilton." It does not, 

 however, appear that Hamilton Buchanan ever used the name Bola 

 (or Bhola) in a generic sense. He mentions Bola (deriving the 

 name, as he says, from the local name of a fish called in Bengal 

 Bhola) only in two places,^ and in both he uses it as a specific 

 name under his subgenus Banlius,* which is generally recognised 

 as a valid genus. Giinther founded the genus Bola with Hamilton 

 Buchanan's Cyprinus goha as its type, and borrowed the generic 

 name from the specific apellation C. bola, Hamilton. In the 

 genus Bola, Giinther, there are two distinct species, viz. B. bola 

 (H.B.) and B. goha (H.B.), though both Giinther and Day ^ regarded 

 them as synonymous. The Cyprinus bola of Hamilton Bucha- 

 nan was from " the Brahmaputra," it grows to "five or six inches 

 in length" and '' is of little value," whereas Hamilton's Cyprinus 

 goha is a '' trout " to English residents and was obtained " from 

 the Kosi, Yamuna, and Son rivers ; grows to about the size of a 

 herring and is fine-flavoured delicate fish. ' ' Furthermore, the Bhola 

 of Bengal is not the Rajamas of the Assamese, from which local 

 name, by the way, Jordan christens his newly-proposed genus. 

 M'Clelland^ and Cuvier and Valenciennes'' recognised the two 

 species as distinct. There are two coloured figures of natural size in 

 the volume of MS Drawings by Hamilton Buchanan in the library 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, representing these two species. The 

 name C. Goha appears in Hamilton Buchanan's own handwriting 

 on the back of Plate cxxvi, while the name Cyprinus Bhola in the 

 same handwriting is written on the back of Plate cxxxi,the latter 

 much the smaller figure of the two. In absence of the types, these 

 drawings have to be adopted as the protographs of these two 

 species, and as the genus Bola, Giinther, is not preoccupied, the 

 names of the species should be respectively : Bola goha (H.B.) and 

 Bola bola (H.B.). ^ -^ Chaudhuri. 



1 Jordan, Proc. Acad. Nat. Set. Philadelphia, LXX, p. 344. 

 ■^ Giinther, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., VII, p. 263. 

 '^ Hamilton Buchanan, Ace. Fish. Ganges, pp. 275 and 385. 

 ■* ,1 ,, ,. ,, ,, pp. 266 and 384. 



^ Day, Fisli. India, p. 594. 



" M'Clelland, Asiat.- Researcli., XIX, pp. 297 and 298, pi. .xlvii, fig. i, and 

 pi. .xlviii, fig. 50. 



7 Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss., XVI, pp. 423 and 424. 



