NATURAL HISTORY OP CHINA SOWERBY 367 



Next to the carps come the catfishes, or Siluridae. Here again 

 China contains a great variety of species, though, taken as a whole, 

 they have nothing like the economic value of the carps. 



Other groups of importance are the so-called Chinese perches, 

 which are in reality basses, certain cottoids, or bullheads, and the 

 serpent heads. 



Of isolated species the little Polyacanthus opercularis, from 

 which the Chinese have bred the paradise fish, and the peculiar 

 ganoid Psephurus gladius, which inhabits the Yangtse and the Yel- 

 low River, and whose only other near relation is confined to the 

 Mississippi, are worthy of mention. The distribution of the latter 

 species and its near relation is interesting, as it is exactly that of the 

 alligators, of which we noted that one form occurs in the Yangtse 

 and the other in the Mississippi basin. It may further be noted that 

 the ganoids, like the alligators, belong to a very ancient type. 



In connection with the fishes of China I should like to point out 

 to the members of the Royal Asiatic Society that the museum con- 

 tains practically no specimens of these forms of cold-blooded ver- 

 tebrates, and though the present acting curator, Dr. Noel Davis, and 

 I are trying to remedy this defect, it would be a splendid thing if 

 some one would undertake to look after this branch, for of all the 

 things the Shanghai Museum ought to have, a good collection of fish, 

 both marine and fresh- water, is one of the most important. In this 

 branch, if in no other, lies a fine field of research, for it has an 

 economic as well as a scientific importance that none can deny. 



INVERTEBRATES 



We may now consider for a brief space the invertebrates of China. 

 Had my line of research in China been more in the direction of the 

 invertebrates, this lecture would have been devoted almost entirely 

 to them, for, important as the vertebrates are, they pale into insig- 

 nificance when compared with the lower forms of life. Yet, sad to 

 relate, the latter have been very much neglected. Zoologists have 

 almost invariably gone after the higher types of animal life, treating 

 the lower forms more or less as unimportant side lines. This is a 

 great pity, for the country is particularly rich in its invertebrate 

 fauna, and would well repay work done in this direction. It is true 

 that one or two branches of invertebrates have been well worked, 

 notably in the case of the lepidopterous insects and seashells. Other 

 branches of insect life, however, have been badly neglected, while 

 almost nothing, or, at least, very little, is known about the terrestrial 

 mollusks. What little is known shows that the land snails of China 

 are of vital importance in the matter of determining how the fauna 

 of these parts acquired its present distribution. Here, then, is 

 another field of research open to some enthusiast. 



