70 Records of the Indian Museum. (Vou. XVILE 
North West Frontier of India and comes from the same geographi- 
cal district as the species (D. phryne) next to be described. 
Discognathus phryne, sp. nov. 
(PI. satis 3.9 pli ie 2.) 
Di. 3/7." Ae2i5e- T3636. Ie stays 20: 
This species is apparently allied to D. variablis, Heckel, from 
which it differs in proportions and in its naked chest and back. 
Like D. variabilis it has only two barbels. 
The size is small and the habit rather stout. The length of 
the head, the greatest depth of the body and the length of the 
caudal fin are approximately equal and are contained from 4} to 
54 times in the complete total length. The dorsal profile is sinuous 
but nowhere strongly arched, rising in an almost even low curve 
from the tip of the snout to the anterior margin of the dorsal fin. 
The abdomen is convex. The snout is blunt and rounded and 
projects slightly beyond the mouth. Secondary sexual characters 
were not observed on the heads of specimens captured in winter. 
The nostrils are large and situated nearer the eye than the tip of 
the snout. The eye is small, its length being contained 3 to 5 
times in the length of the head; it is lateral in position, its upper 
margin approaching the upper profile, and is situated near the 
middle of the length of the head. The upper lip is comparatively 
narrow and indistinctly fringed. The mouth is large and broadly 
arched. The lower lip is represented by a narrow, linear flap of 
tissue; posterior to this there isa transverse, minutely tuberculate 
band, obliquely truncate at either end and much narrowet than the 
anterior flap; it is about as long as the upper lip. Posterior to 
this again lies the true mental disk, which is smooth and by no 
means highly developed. It is somewhat lozenge-shaped in the 
adult fish and considerably broader than long ; its posterior and lat- 
eral margins are free. In shape and proportions it is somewhat vari- 
able. There is a small, blunt barbel at each angle of the mouth; 
its size is variable and it is sometimes reduced to a mere tubercle. 
There is no trace of anterior barbels. The dorsal fin starts con- 
siderably nearer the base of the caudal than the tip of the snout 
and slightly in front of the ventrals. Its undivided rays are soft 
and slender and the last, which is almost as long as the head, is 
articulated in its distal third. The pectorals are a little shorter 
than the head and do not nearly reach the ventrals when ad- 
pressed; they are set obliquely on the side of the body. The 
caudal peduncle is not clearly marked off. The caudal fin is large, 
distinctly cleft and with the two halves subequal or equal and 
bluntly pointed. 
The scales are rather small. ‘There is a relatively broad mid- 
dorsal streak which is entirely bare and so also are the chest and 
abdomen. The muscles of the chest, however, are not highly 
specialized. The lateral scales are deciduous. In the young those 
