1920.]| N. ANNANDALE & S. I. Hora: The Fish of Setstan. 153 
the precise circumstances in which the different species were 
obtained. ; 
Our specimens represent two collections, one made by Sir 
Henry McMahon and the other officers of the Seistan Arbitra- 
tion Commission of 1902-1904, the other by officers of the Zoo- 
logical Survey of India in the winter of 1918. 
The specimens from the first of these collections are labelled, 
without further particulars, as being from Seistan; but in an 
editorial note prefixed to the description of two new species by 
Mr. Tate Regan,! it is stated that they came from ‘‘ affluents of 
the Helmand.’ Now, the Helmand has no affluents in Seistan or 
anywhere near Seistan; none, indeed, in any district where other 
zoological collectioris were made by the Commission. We believe, 
therefore, that “‘affluents”’ is a /apsus calami for “ effluents,” 
and that the fish are from the lower parts of the Helmand system— 
if not actually from Seistan in all cases, at any rate from the adja- 
cent parts of the Afghan desert. This is borne out by information 
kindly given us by Sir Henry McMahon, who writes, ‘‘ The fish 
collected by us were to the best of my belief all from the Rud-i- 
Seistan near our permanent camp near Kuhak close to the take off 
of the Rud-i-Seistan from the Helmand....... Everything we 
got was of course from the ‘ deltaic mouths’ of the Helmand 
and the area of the delta.’’ 
There is no doubt as to the more recent collection. It was 
made by Dr. N, Annandale and Dr. S. W. Kemp in small water- 
channels in the plains of Seistan, in pools in the desert and in half- 
dried beds of effluents of the Helmand in the same district, and 
in the Hamun-i-Helmand, the lake-basin into which that river 
ultimately drains. 
Evenin winter the smallest water-channels, provided they were 
of a permanent nature, were found to swarm with Discognathus 
adiscus and among large numbers of this species a single speci- 
men of D. phryne was found at Nasratabad. D. adiscus was 
obtained in much smaller numbers in the reed-beds of the Hamun 
at the same season, but for some reason all the individuals seen 
were dead or dying, though healthy fish of the same species were 
captured in a small reedy water-course connected with the lake. 
The species occurred in enormous numbers, with young Schizo- 
thorax zarudnyi and a few young Schizocypris brucet, in bare pools 
of very foul water in the bed of the Randa stream near the ruined 
city of Jellalabad (not to be confused with the modern town of 
the same name in Afghanistan). Here again, for more obvious 
reasons, the fish were dead or dying, or rather the Cyprinidae 
were doing so, for the loach Adiposia macmahoni, which was 
buried in the mud at the bottom, was quite healthy. In the 
Hamun-i-Helmand itself the only fish that was apparently at ail 
common in winter was Schizothorax zarudnyt, of which only adult 
specimens were obtained from the lake. This species was originally 
! Regan, Fourn. As. Soc. Bengal, Il, p. 8 (1906). 
