250 INDIAN CYPRINID&. 
How nicely does all this correspond with the character of rasorial 
birds and quadrupeds given by Swainson! “heir toes are never united 
so as to be used for swimming, a peculiarity which confines them to dry 
land or to climbing among trees.” “ This is the type,” says the philosophical 
observer just alluded to, “so remarkable for the greatest development of 
tail, and for those appendages for ornament or defence which decorate the 
head. If we went through the whole class of birds, and selected those 
beginning with the Peacock, wherein the tail was most conspicuous either 
for its size or for the beauty of its colours, we should unknowingly fix upon 
those birds which analysis has already demonstrated to be rasorial types. 
The same results would attend a similar selection of quadrupeds and of 
winged insects; all these collectively would furnish many hundred proofs 
by which the uniformity of this type is preserved; appendages to the head, 
whether in the shape of horns, crests, or fleshy protuberances are no less a 
prevalent character of the group now before us.”* 
48. These peculiarities will be found exactly to apply to Cobztis prop.. 
which I shall now prove. 
First with regard to tail, the Loaches are the only group of Cyprinide 
in which the caudal is not bifid or divided by a fissure into two lobes, 
reducing its size and power as an organ for propelling the body forward ; and 
on the tails of several, especially Cobitis pavonacea, J. M.t we have even the 
zoned or eye-like spots exactly resembling those of the Peacock, although no 
instance of the kind is to be found in any other group of Cyprinide ; and in all 
* Geog. Dist. and Class. Quad. 258. thal OPA Dipak 
