Dr. A. Giinther on Scaphirhynchus Fedtschenkoi. 277 



XXXVI. — Note on Scaphirhynchus Fedtschenkoi. 

 By Dr. Albert Gunther, F.R.S. 



Ichthyologists will thankfully acknowledge the service done 

 to them by the Editors of this Journal in having rendered the 

 interesting discovery of a species of Scaphirhynchus in Central 

 Asia accessible to them by the foregoing translation. It is 

 true that the original Russian text is accompanied by a plate 

 representing the fish ; but more than one ichthyologist would 

 have failed to recognize from it the close affinity of the Asiatic 

 species to the American, as maintained by Prof. Kessler, and 

 would have been rather inclined to regard the new form as the 

 type of a distinct genus. In the figure the rows of scutes are by 

 no means so well marked and so distinctly represented as 

 they are described in the text ; and I have still some doubts 

 whether this is an effect produced by the draughtsman or 

 whether they are in reality more deeply imbedded in the 

 general integuments than is the case in the American 

 species. 



However, a comparison of Prof. Kessler's description with 

 that of S. platyrhynchus by Heckel (which has served as model 

 of the former) shows clearly that both fishes are most closely 

 allied species of the same genus. The most remarkable dif- 

 ference is in the extent of the dorsal and anal fins, which is 

 much greater in S. Fedtschenkoi ^ and combined with a shortening 

 of the tail. But this difference finds a parallel in the species 

 of Acipenser. 



Prof. Kessler (in a part of the paper not reprinted) compares 

 the importance of this discovery to that of Ceratodus. In this 

 I cannot agree with him, and I would rather find an analogous 

 case in the discovery of Psephurus gladius in the Yantsekiang. 

 Indeed, after the discovery of this latter species, that of a Sca- 

 phirhynchus in Asia might have been foreseen, just as I 

 anticipate with confidence the discovery of a Ganoid in Borneo. 

 But nobody, in the present state of knowledge, could have 

 imagined the presence of a Dipnoous form in Australia. The 

 discovery of a living Ceratodus opened a new vista into the 

 affinities of recent and extinct fishes, whilst that of Scaphi- 

 rhynchus Fedtschenkoi is only an additional interesting item of 

 the series of instances by which the close affinity of the 

 North-American, North-Asiatic, and European faunas is 

 proved. 



