Schistura. INDIAN CYPRINID&. 439 
XII.—Cositis PHOXOCHEILA, J. M. 
t. 52. f. 4. 
This curious species has the head raised obliquely as in the Perilamps, 
and the ridge between the eyes sharp and bony. Sides compressed, and a 
dark nebulous streak extends along the lateral line on either side. Above 
clouded with brown, beneath silvery. The fin rays are, 
TDESiP Ss 3Vi.6:7A.6): C.16. 
The caudal is round, and crossed by several small bars. Found by Mr. Griffith 
in the Mishmee mountains. 
Sus-GEN.—SCHISTURA, J. M. 
The species composing this sub-genus have hitherto been placed with 
the Loaches, with which their habits and form correspond ; many of them 
have also similar suborbitar spines to those of some of the true Loaches, and 
all of them have small scales, and the surface of the body enveloped in a 
copious mucous secretion like the Loaches, from which they are only known 
by their bifid caudal, and the transverse bars or rings of colour that encircle 
the body. This last remarkable character may be regarded as a remote 
analogy to the structure of annulose animals, to which these fishes approxi- 
mate by means of the Lampreys and Mixines, which Linneus placed with 
the worms. The resemblance between the mouth of the Loaches and that 
of the Mixines is indeed so remarkable as to require only to be alluded to, in 
order to perceive the relation between the two groups. 
The alimentary canal is somewhat longer than the body, the stomach 
is short and lunate, the pyloris reflected and supplied with a valve. <A bilo- 
bate natatory bladder, divided by a longitudinal septum, is found in some of 
the most perfect species, as Cobitis dario and Cobitis geta, Buch. whose short 
