28o Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. XVI , 



There is only one specimen measuring 72 mm. in length with- 

 out the caudal fin, collected from a stream near Tanja. The 

 preorbital has no projection wholly free and movable nor is it 

 entirely concealed by the skin, but there is a narrow concave slit 

 or groove just underneath it, commencing from below the middle 

 of the eye and reaching to about the middle of the snout. The eyes 

 are in the middle of the head and the anterior root of the dorsal 

 fin is equidistant from the tip of the snout and the root of the 

 caudal fin. The distance of the vent from the snout is sixty-one 

 in hundredths of its length without the caudal fin. The caudal 

 fin is almost square-cut and slightly emarginate. The ground 

 colour of the body is dull grey or dirty white with fourteen 

 broken-up transverse bands of dark brown above the lateral line 

 and seven or eight wedge-shaped transverse markings below it, 

 alternating with the bands above. There are four transverse dark 

 brown bands on the caudal fin instead of five, and these bands are 

 rather wavy and not at all oblique or > shaped as is usual in the 

 species. It approaches nearer to the variety N . aureus, Day than 

 to the typical form. M'Clelland's figures, viz. figs. 4 and 6 of plate li 

 and fig. 6 of plate liii, are only imperfect reproductions of three 

 figures in plates numbered 49, 50 and 53 of the manuscript drawings 

 of Hamilton Buchanan.' These figures are labelled Cobitis hilturi , 

 Cohitis botya, and Cobitis scaturigina in Buchanan's handwriting. 

 The name on plate 53 of the collection of MSS. drawings in the 

 possession of Asiatic Society of Bengal, however, has been inadver- 

 tently cut off by the binder. Giinther considered N. scaturigina 

 to be a doubtful species of the genus. ^ 



Distribution. — Punjab; Sind ; Poona ; Madras, as far south 

 as the R. Kistna ; Orissa ; Bihar; Bengal; Assam; Burma, 

 Southern Shan States and North-Eastern frontier ; Ceylon. 



Genus Scmiplotus, Bleeker. 



Semiplotus cirrhosus, Chaudhuri, sp. n. 



(Plate XXII, figs. 3, 3a.) 



Bleeker, who founded the genus Semiplotus on a single 

 Assamese species, Cyprinus semiplotus, M'CMland, attributed to the 

 genus among several other characters the possession of a knob 

 at the symphysis and the absence of barbels. The new species, 

 however, has two maxillary barbels and is without any knob 

 at the symphysis of the lower jaw. In all other respects it so 

 very naturally fits into the genus that it would be going against 

 all sound principles not to include it. The practice of multiply- 

 ing the number of genera should, as far as possible, be discour- 

 aged, as it only makes the path of systematic study unnecessarily 

 difficult. 



' Chaudhuri, Mem. Ind. Mus., V, p. 444 (foot-note). 

 2 Giinther, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., VII, p. 347. 



