INDIAN CYPRINID. 225 
9. The development of the intestinal canal in Cyprinide differs with the 
habits of species, so as to afford something like a basis for true distinctions 
between the different genera, and is fortunately connected with such pe- 
culiarities of form and colour, as to render it easily available as a guide to 
an improved method of classification. 
10. The philosophical views of Mr. MacLeay regarding the circularity 
of groups, left it almost certain that the law which applied to other 
classes might be also applied to fishes ; and as the essence of that law consists in 
the tendency of the contents of natural groups to form a circle, it became 
highly probable that as strictly herbivorous Carps were known, so on the 
contrary carnivorous species might be expected also to exist.* This is exem- 
plified by a comparison of typical with subtypical groups, as Quadrumana 
with Here in the orders of Mammalia, and Insessores with Raptores in 
the orders of birds; as this is true with regard to higher groups, it should 
be just as applicable to the lower assemblages when they happen to be 
equally complete in their parts. 
11. The above inference whether its principles be just or not, has proved 
to be perfectly correct, notwithstanding the remark of Linnezus that Cyprins 
are perhaps the least carnivorous of the whole class of fishes, ‘“ feeding chiefly 
on seeds, grass, and even mud;” and the observation of Cuvier “ that they 
are the least carnivorous of all fishes.” Those who have since written on the 
subject have for the most part adopted the views on this point of the great 
authorities just named. 
12. A close investigation of our Indian species has led to very dif- 
ferent results, and enabled me to form Cyprinide into three sub-families. 
First the Paonomine or herbivorus Cyprins already adverted to, which 
* [here refer particularly to what Mr. MacLeay calls affinity of transultation, or that relation 
which the opposite points of a circle of affinities bear to each other. 
D 
