130 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. XVI, 



Since I discussed the collection from the Inle Lake I have had 

 an opportunity of examining a large series of fresh and well pre- 

 served specimens of the two commonest Indian forms from the 

 Deccan and elsewhere. The names most convenient for these two 

 forms are D. lamta, Day and D. nasutus (McClelland). I give Day 

 and not Buchanan as the author of the former, because it is 

 impossible to be sure as to the species to which Buchanan first 

 applied the name Cyprinus lamta ; his original figures in the lib- 

 rary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal cast no light on the subject. 



A great deal of the uncertainty about the Indian species of 

 the genus has arisen from the fact that the marked and constant 

 structural characters which separate these two forms are to some 

 extent concealed by bad preservation of specimens. The essential 

 differences between D. lamta and D. nasutus (= D. modestus. Day) 

 are correlated with the fact that whereas the former lives in the 

 pools of larger streams in or near the plains or even in upland 

 lakes, the latter is an inhabitant of mountain torrents. In D. 

 lamta, although the fish can cling to vertical surfaces by means of 

 its mental disk, the abdomen is not flattened, the pectoral fins 

 are set obliquely on the sides of the body and the rays are not 

 greatly flattened or expanded. In D. nasutus on the other hand 

 the fins and chest are modified to form an organ of adhesion, as is 

 well shown in fig. 2a, pi. II. Unless great care is exercised in 

 preserving specimens of D. lamta, however, the ventral surface 

 collapses and though the structure of the pectoral fins remains of 

 course unchanged, their relations to the chest and to one another 

 are distorted. The form I describe here as D. gravelyi is allied to 

 D. lamta. from which it differs in outline, in the shape of the head 

 and in the form of the mental disk. 



The form Day called D jerdoni seems to me to be distin- 

 guished from D. lamta by characters which are quite apparent 

 when adult specimens are compared.' They lie mainly in the 

 shape and proportions of the body and the relative size of the 

 head and eye. 



D. macrochir (McCl.) from Assam is evidently allied to D. 

 nasutus, but may be distinct. 



Two forms of the genus occur in Syria and Mesopotamia. 

 One of these (D. rufus, Heckel) I regard as a variety of D. lamta, 

 while the other (Z). variabilis,'^ Heckel) differs from all the Indian 

 forms in having only one pair of barbels. A form has been des- 

 cribed from Southern Arabia and the Punjab Salt Range the male 

 of which bears a forwardly directed tubercular appendage on the 



1 Since this paper was written 1 have examined a good series of fresh 

 specimens from the Bhavani River at ihe base of the Nilghiris. They fall definitely 

 into three species, two of which are distinguished from all those included in my key 

 by the possession by the adult male of a conical tuberculate process between 

 the nostril. I hope to discuss this new material shortly. 



2 This species also occurs in the Helmand basin, possibly within the limits 

 of the Indian Empire. See Tate Regan, Joiirn. As. Soc. Bengal, (n.s.) II, p. 8 

 (1906). 



