328 INDIAN CYPRINIDZ. Peonomine. 
is rather more than thrice the altitude; the scales are very small, and extend 
in rows along the sides, seventy-eight in each row, and thirty in an oblique row 
from the base of the ventrals to the dorsum; the head is less compressed 
than the body. The fin rays are, 
DAG or 7 | Bava Vey PAL Calg: 
The lips are continuous round the mouth, double and fimbriated on 
their margins, and formed for collecting a loose soft food of a confervoid kind, 
which occurs abundantly in most of the waters of the plains of India, and 
the remains of which is plentifully found in the intestines. 
The stomach is a long tapering tube, which terminates gradually in an 
extremely lengthy but narrow canal, which instead of being disposed in cir- 
cular or serpentine convolutions, appears coiled in complicated meshes which 
occupy more or less of the abdominal cavity, according to the state of ingesta 
at the time the specimen is examined. The waters in which this species appears 
to delight, are the larger rivers where the currents are sluggish, and the 
banks formed of sand or mud ; or extensive jeels, such as those on the north- 
eastern side of Bengal. It seldom attains a greater size than a foot in length, 
is excessively bony, and rather insipid as an article of food. 
The variety of this species described by Buchanan under the name 
of Cyp. cursa is distinguished by four cirri, and eight rays in the anal fin. 
The following are the characters of one which is common in Caleutta—seventy- 
eight scales along the lateral line, thirty-eight in an oblique row from the base 
of the ventrals to the dorsum; under lobe of the caudal smaller than the 
upper; no cirri; intestines and stomach thirteen lengths of the entire animal. 
The fin rays are, 
D762 (PGi Vi. AG fe C.2. 
Plate 59, figs. 1, 2, represent the structure and disposition of the 
scales. Were I sure that my collection is complete in the varieties described 
