200 Mr. J. M'Clellancl on Indian Cyprinidae. 



as the one in which he is fast rising to the highest station, is 

 now engaged in making extensive collections of, and obser- 

 vations on, the fishes of the same river. The museums of 

 Paris must already be well stored with Indian species col- 

 lected by Messrs. Duvaucel, Jaquemont, and DeLessert, but 

 I doubt if any of our British museums contain many of the 

 commonest species of the Ganges. 



Natural history is now assuming a station so important in 

 the highest scale of intellectual pursuits, that any remarks at all 

 calculated to impress on the minds of those who are connected 

 with missions into new countries a lively sense of the inter- 

 est that attaches to its most minute details, will not, we may 

 be assured, be taken amiss. Information, however carefully 

 collected on such occasions as those referred to, becomes com- 

 paratively useless when unaccompanied with specimens of the 

 things to which it relates. We should ever recollect, that 

 the easiest and best way to promote our own fame, and con- 

 tiibute at the same time to the advancement of natural history, 

 is by making collections ; nor are we without examples of the 

 highest awards having been, though somewhat prematurely, 

 conceded to collectors. Nevertheless, to render collections of 

 the highest degree of real value in the present advanced state 

 of science, those who make them should gather at the same 

 time as much information as possible regarding the circum- 

 stances under which the various objects comprised in them 

 live or occur; and it is in this that the intelligence of the na- 

 turalist may be best and most profitably displayed during his 

 journeys in new countries. 



53. The following tabular view of the distribution of Cypri- 

 nicla, though avowedly imperfect, will serve to show how the 

 leading groups are generally dispersed. Cirrhins, for instance, 

 appear to be peculiar to India, or at least to the tropical parts 

 of Asia, and the Catastoms to America ; while both are repre- 

 sented in Europe by the true Carps. From the number of 

 Gangetic species, the Barbels, like the Cirrhins, would seem 

 to have their metropolis in India, from whence the genus is 

 extended over the Caspian Sea and the Nile into Europe. 



The Gonorhynchs would also seem, as a group, to be na- 

 tives of the East, one species only having been found in South 

 Africa, none in Europe, and eleven in India. 



The greater part of the Sarcoborina are probably also East- 

 ern fishes, with the exception of the Breams and Leuciscs, 

 although some of the European forms set down under the 

 latter genera may be found to belong either to the Perilamps 

 or Opsarions. 



The small subgenera o(Poecilia appear to be equally distri- 



