248 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



And speaking of India, I should like, in passing, to point out that 

 there are no fresh-water fishes found in Ceylon which do not occur 

 in Southern India, which fact would seem to furnish further evidence 

 in support of the theory that in remote ages this Island was part 

 of the adjacent peninsula. There are, of course, other ways of 

 accounting for the coincidence, but a land connection intersected 

 by a river (or perhaps several rivers) appears to me the most probable 

 explanation. 



In a small coimtry like Ceylon, entirely surrounded by the ocean 

 and traversed by numerous large rivers, it is quite natural that 

 marine and estuarial fish comprise a very large proportion of the 

 total annual catch, and although my remarks are supposed to deal 

 exclusively with fresh-water fish, it is of interest to note that under 

 certain conditions the scaly inhabitants of our estuaries readily 

 accommodate themselves to fresh or slightly brackish water, and 

 vice versa. The gray mullet and Ghanos salmoneus are notorious for 

 this adaptability, and Etroplus suratensis provides another instance. 

 There are numerous lagoons all round our coasts, such as Kalutara 

 and Negombo (to mention only two out of many), divided by quite 

 a narrow sand strip from the sea, in which the water is fresh, or 

 practically so, and yet they contain several species of fish usually 

 found only in the sea, or at any rate in salt water. Moreover, these 

 fish have lived and reproduced their kind there for many j^ears, 

 and apparently suffer no inconvenience. The salmon in European 

 waters has been quoted as a similar instance of adaptability, but 

 as a matter of fact this fish only returns to fresh water for a specific 

 purpose, namely, to deposit its eggs and hatch the young, so the 

 cases are not analagous. 



In conclusion, I wish to draw your attention for a few minutes to 

 a fish which I imagine very few of you have ever seen before, either 

 aHve or dead. I refer to Osphromenus olfax, the gourami of the Far 

 East, to acclimatize which in Ceylon several attempts have been 

 made during the past twenty years. As stated in a recent number 

 of Spolia Zeylanica Mr. G. M. Fowler, C.C.S., procured a number 

 of these fish some dozen years ago and distributed them amongst 

 certain tanks, the localities of which, unfortunately, have not been 

 preserved. A few weeks ago, however, I was fortunate enough to 

 discover six of them in an ornamental piece of water, and a photo- 

 graph of one secured therefrom, with the help of Dr. Pearson and 

 his staff, is now displayed on the screen. This timely find has 

 established beyond doubt that the gourami will live in Ceylon, but 

 it also makes evident the fact that they will not necessarily reproduce 

 themselves. So far as I am able to judge, all six of the specimens 

 in question belong to the same batch and are of the same age — 

 roughly, twelve years — but as none of them are over 8 or 9 

 lb. in weight, they cannot be said to have thriven in their present 

 surroundings. On the other hand, it has to be conceded that they 



