Labeo. INDIAN CYPRINID&. 331 
The colours are bluish or brownish black above and on the extremities of 
the fins, but bluish white along the belly ; the sides are also bluish-white with 
various stains of red and yellow on the shoulders. 
On a closer examination of its structure, the limbs of the lower jaw are 
found to have a stronger ligamentous attachment in front than was observed 
in the true Cirrhins, while the articulation behind to the pteropalatine bones 
is considerably weaker, and the maxillary apparatus forming the front of the 
upper jaw is remarkably strong, the intermaxillary having firm articulations 
laterally with the outer sides of the apophyses of the limbs of the lower jaw. 
proving clearly that whatever power such a structure is intended to exercise, 
must be rather adapted to the crushing of detached objects, than the separa- 
tion of such as are fixed or rooted to the ground, which would require a 
strong abutment of the jaw behind, as in the Gonorhynchs. Hence we may 
infer, that the bruising of shells and seeds is the peculiar object of its 
existence. In its search for such food, it would naturally be led to shallow 
waters on banks of sand and boulders where shell fish and drifted fragments 
of plants are most common, and the dangers to which it is exposed in such 
situations from birds and other animals, as well as of being left above the 
retiring currents, would be more to be guarded against than in species inhabit- 
ing deeper waters ; hence those fins on which the velocity of its movements 
depend are large; and like all those species that inhabit rapid currents, its 
snout is perforated by numerous pores, from which an abundant slimy se- 
cretion is carried backward over the body by means of its motion through the 
water, the friction or resistance of which is thus diminished; this use of the 
mucous from the nasal pores of fishes I derive from Mr. Yarrell. The 
still more copious mucous secretion enveloping the bodies of Loaches and 
other Apalopterine we may presume is given them as a means of escape from 
enemies, rather than to facilitate their movements in the water, as they are not 
expert swimmers. Nothing can better illustrate this, than that in Gudgeons des- 
tined chiefly to inhabit stagnant waters, and not formed for very rapid swim- 
